Comcast is taking its well-known reputation for being loathed in the cable business to the world of theme parks, where a trip to Comcast-owned Universal Studios Hollywood will now cost visitors 21% more for a walk-up one-day pass.

The cable operator believes it has left your money on the table, under charging for visits to the popular tourist destination. It has corrected that with the introduction of “on-demand pricing,” just a few weeks before the April 7 opening of its new Harry Potter attractions.

Steve Burke, who runs Comcast’s theme park and entertainment divisions, realized Comcast has “underestimated the theme parks business.” So it has raised prices… a lot, just in time for the arrival of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, featuring a giant castle, magic wand shops and a simulated ride on a broomstick that has caused even seasoned employees at the park to retch.

Also likely to turn stomachs is the new $115 per adult one-day pass price. One theme park designer told Bloomberg News he anticipated Harry Potter-related attractions will bring at least one million new visitors to the park, which will deliver a handsome $115 million to Comcast’s coffers.

Those looking for a less expensive ticket will need to plan well ahead and visit when park attendance is at its lowest, typically on weekdays. The new “on-demand pricing” means visitors will buy tickets like airline seats. Monday-Friday visits in April will cost $95, according to the website. Advance purchases of tickets good only on a specified Saturday or Sunday cost $105. If you don’t want to wait in line, you can buy “front of the line” passes for $179-239 per person. The $115 ticket is what visitors will get when they don’t buy tickets in advance.

But Comcast stands ready to collect even more from your visit, from food and beverage sales to ubiquitous Harry Potter merchandise. An “interactive wand” will set you back $48, a Hogwarts-approved tie costs $32, and a wizarding robe will make your pocketbook disappear at $110 each.

Comcast isn’t the only theme park owner in a hurry to raise rates. Variable pricing has also taken hold at Walt Disney theme parks. Ticket price inflation is already putting a strain on many visitors’ vacation budgets. At the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in Orlando, single-day adult admission rose from $85 in 2011 to $89 in 2012, $95 in 2013, $99 in 2014, to $105 in 2015.

Entrenched telecom industry lobbyists and a legislature enriched by their campaign contributions chose the interests of AT&T, Comcast, and Charter Communications over the broadband needs of rural Tennessee, killing a municipal broadband expansion bill already scaled down to little more than a demonstration project.

The Tennessee House Business and Utilities Subcommittee voted 5-3 Tuesday to end efforts to bring much-needed Internet access to rural Hamilton and Bradley counties, long ignored or underserved by the state’s dominant telecom companies. Rep. Kevin Brooks’ (R-Cleveland) original bill would have allowed Chattanooga-based EPB and other publicly owned utility services to expand fiber broadband and television service to other electric co-ops around the state.

Realizing his bill would be voted up or down by members of a committee that included one former AT&T executive and others receiving substantial campaign contributions from some of Tennessee’s largest phone and cable companies, he reduced the scale of his own bill to a simple demonstration project serving a limited number of customers.

The bill failed anyway, in a vote that took less than a minute.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press described the scene:

Rep. Marc Gravitt (R-East Ridge) voted for Brooks’ amendment and Rep. Patsy Hazlewood (R-Signal Mountain), a one-time AT&T executive, voting against it.

As Rep. Kent Calfee (R-Kingston), the subcommittee’s chairman, prepared to move on to the next bill, he suddenly realized the original bill remained before the panel.

“I’m sorry,” Calfee, who voted against the amendment, told Brooks as the Cleveland lawmaker turned to leave. “It’s the amendment [that failed]. Is there any need to vote on the bill?”

Brooks replied, “The amendment makes the bill. I’d love a vote on the bill.”

“Sorry about that,” Calfee said.

And that was that.

Residents and business people alike in northern Hamilton and portions of Bradley counties say they either have no service, lousy service or wireless service that makes it very expensive to upload and download documents for work and school.

EPB provides municipal power, broadband, television, and telephone service for residents in Chattanooga, Tenn.

“It’s a testament to the power of lobbying against this bill and not listening to our electorate,” Brooks told reporters. “The voice of the people today was not heard. And that’s unfortunate.”

Brooks’ bill did attract considerable interest – from telecom industry lobbyists who flooded the state legislative offices with a mission of killing it. The Tennessee newspaper said a “platoon of lobbyists and executives, including AT&T Tennessee President Joelle Phillips,” poured into the House hearing room or watched on nearby video screens to scrutinize the vote.

“I heard they hired 27 lawyers to fight,” Brooks said.

Rural Tennessee Republicans were disappointed by the outcome, which leaves substantial parts of their districts unwired for broadband.

“[This] was the perfect opportunity for EPB to be a pilot and to prove they can do what they say they can do,” said Rep. Dan Howell (R-Georgetown). “And if they can’t do it, it’s a perfect opportunity to put it to rest forever. They wouldn’t even let us do a pilot to prove that EPB can do what it claimed.”

Brooks

Rep. Mike Carter (R-Ooltewah), also has a bill being held up in the legislature that would allow expansion of public broadband with the consent of citizen members of co-ops and elected leaders of the rural utilities.

Carter didn’t seem too surprised municipal broadband bills like his were being delayed or killed in the state legislature at the behest of AT&T and other companies.

“You just don’t go up against Goliath unless you have your sling and five stones. I just didn’t have my five stones today,” Carter said.

AT&T declared the bill was flawed, arguing in a statement it was not opposed to municipal broadband, so long as it was targeted only to customers unserved by any other provider. AT&T complained Brooks’ bill lacked language protecting them from unwanted competition.

“None of the bills considered … has any provision that would limit government expansion to unserved areas or even focus on those areas,” AT&T wrote.

Less than 24 hours after the vote ended Charter Communications had a special message for members of the legislature.

The cable operator sent invitations to Tennessee lawmakers giving them free airtime to star in their own “public service announcements” that will blanket the screens of Charter cable TV customers, giving the politicians free exposure.

Rep. Calfee’s second largest contributor is AT&T.

Charter’s director of government affairs for Tennessee was the executive extending the invitation.

“As a leading broadband communications provider and cable operator serving customers in Tennessee, Charter is committed to providing compelling public affairs programming and public service announcements,” said Nick Pavlis, Charter’s chief lobbyist in the state and a Knoxville city councilman. “We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to speak directly to your constituents. Taping times are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so we encourage you to schedule yours as soon as possible.”

“Right now it would appear to those watching from the outside that big business won and big business is now reciprocating,” said Brooks.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) called the invitation inappropriate.

“Charter has done everything they could possibly do to deny rural Bradley broadband, Internet/content service,” Gardenshire told the Times Free Press.

“Well, my first inclination is to say I’m surprised, coming the day after they killed the broadband bill in committee,” added Howell. “[It is] kind of ironic now that they’re asking people to come forward and make public service announcements about how good their service is. I’m kind of stunned.”

For more than 20 years, Boston residents have watched NBC for free on WHDH-TV Channel 7. But if Comcast gets its way, at least four million Beantown viewers may have to subscribe to pay cable television service to keep watching.

This morning, WHDH filed suit against the cable giant in federal court in Boston alleging Comcast broke federal and state laws and an agreement it signed with antitrust regulators when it announced it would not renew WHDH’s affiliation contract with NBC. Comcast acquired NBC in 2011, after agreeing to conditions preventing the cable company from engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

Media observers say Comcast has made no secret of its desire to buy WHDH or another Boston over the air station, to build its network of affiliates directly owned and operated by the cable company. Station owner Ed Ansin isn’t selling, at least not at Comcast’s current asking price. But eyebrows were raised when Comcast announced it would end its affiliation agreement with WHDH – a well-known, high-powered television station – and move NBC programming to New England Cable News (NECN), a low-rated Comcast-owned cable channel.

Unless something changes, NECN will disappear on Jan. 1, 2017, replaced by a new “NBC Boston” cable channel. The decision will also strand WHDH without a major network affiliation, which is likely to significantly cut the station’s value and ratings.

“Comcast has a reputation for pushing the envelope wherever they can but they’ve just done an awful lot of things wrong here,” said Ansin.

In an effort to limit the damaging optics of Comcast forcing free network television programming to pay cable, Comcast announced it would also relay its NBC Boston cable channel over a UHF channel in another state now showing Telemundo programming. Those without cable will have to adjust their antennas carefully to receive WNEU-TV Channel 60, in Merrimack, N.H, the new home of NBC for Boston-area cord-cutters and cord-nevers.

WNEU’s coverage area only reaches 50% of the Boston television market.

That may be good news for New Hampshire residents in Concord or Nashua that may have had trouble watching NBC shows over WHDH, but very bad news for about four million people inside Greater Boston who live where WNEU’s signal doesn’t reach, including those in primarily minority communities like Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Brockton. Those residents, along with other areas in southern Boston, will likely have to call Comcast and buy cable TV to keep watching NBC starting this January.

WHDH’s lawyers have now pushed back:

When Comcast, the largest cable company in the world, acquired NBC in 2011, there was widespread concern about the impact this unprecedented accumulation of power in the television industry would have on viewers and other market participants. Particularly in markets like Boston, where Comcast is the dominant cable provider, citizen groups, industry participants and government agencies expressed concern that Comcast would seek to leverage its cable holdings and in the process degrade its broadcasting presence and diminish the important public service role that broadcast television stations historically have played.  To address those concerns, Comcast promised its NBC affiliates (including WHDH) that it would negotiate affiliate extensions in good faith such that over the air access would be maintained, and cable interests would not influence those negotiations.  As part of the FCC’s approval of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC, the FCC adopted these same conditions in order to protect the public interest.

WHDH believes that Comcast has violated these conditions.  It also believes that Comcast’s actions violate Massachusetts law prohibiting unfair and deceptive business practices.  Finally, WHDH believes that Comcast’s actions violate federal and state antitrust laws because they have enabled Comcast to increase its monopoly power in the Boston television market, and the resulting decrease in competition will harm consumers, advertisers and other broadcasters.

In its suit WHDH is seeking an injunction and an order requiring Comcast to comply with its obligations under its agreement with WHDH and the FCC order. WHDH will also seek damages.

WHDH also accuses Comcast of stringing it along on the renewal of its affiliate agreement, claiming they were told discussions about an extension would begin “when the time was right.” WHDH says Comcast was plotting to launch its own cable network alternative all along, and didn’t negotiate in good faith. In July 2013, NECN ad sales representatives began telling advertisers it would soon become the local NBC affiliate. After WHDH protested to Comcast, the cable company claimed NECN’s statements were untrue.

“No major national broadcaster has ever terminated its relationship with a successful independent affiliate in a major market to build its own local affiliate from scratch,” WHDH lawyers wrote.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHDH Boston Major announcement involving NBC and WHDH-TV 1-7-16.mp4[/flv]

WHDH in Boston informed viewers back in January that Comcast was not going to renew its affiliation agreement with NBC. Today, WHDH’s lawyers took Comcast to court. (3:27)

Comcast customers in Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, Detroit, and Miami will be the first to get Comcast’s new DOCSIS 3.1 modems and faster Internet plans likely to accompany the introduction of the latest cable broadband standard.

Multichannel News reports after field trials in Pennsylvania, Northern California and Atlanta, Comcast is ready to deploy the newest cable modem standard for residential and business class customers to deliver gigabit broadband services delivered over the company’s traditional hybrid fiber-coaxial cable network.

The company expects to begin distributing new modems to customers early this year, starting in Atlanta and Nashville. Comcast is still finalizing pricing on its fastest gigabit-range plans, but the cost is expected to be less than Comcast’s Gigabit Pro offering, which is delivered over fiber-to-the-home service. The cable company now charges Gigabit Pro customers $299.95 a month for the gigabit fiber service with a two-year contract. It is likely Comcast will have to price its cable gigabit offering under $100 a month to compete effectively with Google Fiber and AT&T’s U-verse with GigaPower. Google and AT&T are readying gigabit networks in both of Comcast’s first launch markets.

Comcast exempts Gigabit Pro customers from its growing field trial of data caps, but the company had nothing to say about whether its DOCSIS 3.1-powered plans will receive similar treatment. If not, customers can expect a 300GB monthly allowance.

During the second half of this year, Comcast will expand DOCSIS 3.1 to Chicago, Detroit and Miami. Beyond that, Comcast would not say when the rest of its customers across the country would be upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1 service.

Customers who own their own modems and do not plan to upgrade to a faster plan can continue to use that equipment. Customers looking to upgrade will have to lease a modem from Comcast or buy an authorized DOCSIS 3.1 capable modem, which is expected to cost 30-50% more than traditional DOCSIS 3.0 equipment.