Steve Burke is CEO of NBCUniversal and an executive vice president at Comcast.

Comcast is in the enviable position of negotiating with itself for permission to carry Comcast-owned NBC stations over Comcast Cable, earning the company hundreds of millions in retransmission consent fees paid by cable subscribers.

Comcast executive vice president Steve Burke, who also oversees the Comcast-owned NBCUniversal, said retransmission fees are changing the broadcast business, and makes Comcast a ton of money along the way.

“NBC made virtually nothing on retransmission consent two years ago,” Burke told investors at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference. “This year we’ll make about $200 million.”

Since acquiring NBCUniversal, cable subscribers cannot help but find themselves watching at least one channel owned by the entertainment and cable conglomerate. Burke said in addition to owning NBC local stations in the largest U.S. cities, Comcast also owns or controls an impressive number of popular cable channels including USA, Syfy, Bravo, E!, MSNBC, CNBC, The Weather Channel, and a variety of sports networks. Seven Comcast-owned cable networks earn the company more than $200 million annually, providing almost two-thirds of the programming division’s operating cash flow.

But Burke isn’t satisfied with those earnings, claiming cable companies undervalue the networks’ true worth by 20-25 percent.

“There is a monetization gap between how those channels are doing and how they should be doing measured by how peer cable channels are doing,” Burke explained. “In other words we are not paid as much as we think we should be given our ratings and our positioning by cable and satellite companies.”

Burke told investors the company is positioning to capitalize on the growth of retransmission consent fees that will deliver more revenue to the broadcast and cable programming divisions of Comcast that will be eventually reflected on subscribers’ bills.

“The key to retransmission consent is to have contracts expire with the big distributors that allow you to reopen the existing retransmission consent contracts,” Burke said. “One thing that we really hadn’t figured on when we did the deal was how rapidly retransmission consent was going to establish itself. We underestimated that frankly. That’s a very good thing for NBCUniversal, but not so good I think for Comcast Cable.”

Although Comcast has been very vocal about unreasonable price increases for broadcast and cable television programming owned by other companies, it expects comparable compensation for its own stations and networks.

“As our contracts come up, we will get those revenues the same way CBS, ABC and FOX have,” Burke argues. “I see no reason why we won’t […] get paid in a similar fashion to the way that they get paid in the future.”

Comcast rates are going up again this fall in the Pacific Northwest, now exceeding $70 a month.

At least 600,000 cable customers in Oregon and southwestern Washington will pay 4.4 percent more for 100-channel television service beginning this October, raising the cost of Standard basic cable to $70.49 a month.

Despite threats of cord cutting, customers in the Pacific Northwest have remained loyal to the idea of paying for television, according to Fred Christ, policy director for the Metropolitan Area Cable Commission in Washington County.

“Subscriber numbers remain steady,” Christ told The Oregonian. “People still don’t see an easy alternative to Comcast, Frontier (FiOS TV), or the satellite providers, all of which cause more or less the same amount of pain.”

The newspaper notes sports programming may not be the cause of this year’s rate increase.

The cost of Comcast’s discounted “Digital Economy” cable package, which excludes most expensive sports networks, is rising at nearly double the rate of Standard Cable, up 8.6 percent this fall to $37.95 a month.

For those who cannot afford traditional Standard cable television, Comcast’s limited basic service, which primarily consists of local TV channels, runs $12-22 a month depending on the customer’s location. It also increased in price by about $1.30 a month in August.

Comcast may not mind cord cutters too much, because it reaps significant profits from the broadband service that powers online viewing. Comcast raised speeds from 15 to 20Mbps last spring along with the price. The popular “Performance” tier now costs $53.95 a month.

Comcast is testing the reintroduction of usage caps in a handful of service areas, typically providing up to 300GB of usage per month before overlimit fees kick in. But those Internet usage limits do not yet apply in the Pacific Northwest.

Comcast blamed the rate increases on network enhancement investments including faster Internet speeds, more multi platform video and better customer service. Comcast is currently introducing its new X1 cable box that makes finding programming easier.

Customers can avoid the worst of the price increases by choosing a bundled service package, which will see a lower rate increase. Current customers can also call Comcast to negotiate a better deal by threatening to cancel service.

Time Warner Cable’s decision to spend $11 billion to broadcast Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers games at an estimated cost of $50-60 a year per subscriber is the subject of a class action lawsuit from fed up customers.

The plaintiffs are upset cable subscribers across Southern California will have to cover the cost of the 20-year deal with no option to opt-out of the sports channels because they are bundled into the most popular cable package.

The suit, filed this week in Superior Court alleges at least 60 percent of subscribers have no interest in the sports programming, but will collectively cover $6.6 billion of the deal and never watch a single game.

Time Warner Cable is also accused of forcing AT&T U-verse, Charter Cable, Cox Cable, DirecTV and Verizon FiOS to sign restrictive contracts that compel the companies to include the sports channels on the basic lineup.

Ironically, Time Warner Cable itself regularly complains about the increasing cost of programming and contract terms that force it to bundle expensive sports channels inside the basic tier instead of offering customers optional, added-cost sports programming packages.

Both sports teams are also named as defendants in the suit because they were aware that all subscribers would face rate increases as a result of the deal.

“TWC’s bundling results in Defendants making huge profits, much of which is extracted from unwilling consumers who have no opportunity to delete unwanted telecasts,” the complaint states.

The suit claims there is no legitimate reason Time Warner Cable and the sports teams could not have offered the new networks only to customers that wished to pay for them. The suit wants the bundling of the sports networks stopped and customers given refunds for the higher television bills that resulted.

Cable companies, including Time Warner Cable, are offering a mix of threats and financial incentives to keep popular cable programming away from online video competitors.

Bloomberg News today reported the private discussions primarily target upstart streaming video services from companies like Intel, Apple, and Google, which are all proposing multichannel streaming video services that could one day replace the local cable company.

All three would-be competitors have been stymied, some for years, from signing contracts with popular cable networks like HBO, USA, ESPN and Comedy Central. If a viewer wants to watch those networks, they usually have to authenticate themselves as existing cable, satellite, or telco-TV customers to get access to live and recorded programming. The cable industry prefers it that way as a customer retention tool.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt admitted to Wall Street analysts attending this week’s Cable Show his company probably insists on contract language that bars programmers from providing content to online video services.

“We may well have ones that have that prohibition,” Britt said at the conference in Washington. “This is not a cookie-cutter kind of business.”

Some cable company contracts are more benign, only requiring programmers to license content on the same terms offered to their online competitors. Britt said some of Time Warner Cable’s contracts fall into this category.

Britt

Britt has repeatedly emphasized Time Warner wants to license content more broadly to allow the company to include it in its TV Everywhere platform, which streams video content to wireless devices. The cable operator adopted a policy in 2009 that sought to deliver content to customers on any device they wish. Restrictive contracts have kept that policy from being fully implemented.

AT&T U-verse says it won’t pay full price for cable programming sold to its online competitors.

“If they’re going to go over-the-top, then that’s a very different conversation and a very different value for our customers,” Jeff Weber, president of content, said last month at an investor conference. “Exclusive versus non-exclusive has materially different value for our customers. And I think we would want that reflected.”

Restrictive contracts are all about protecting the existing pay television ecosystem, according to Charter’s chief financial officer, Chris Winfrey.

“It’s in everybody’s mutual interest that we are protecting the ecosystem in a way that continues to keep the value of that programming that we have and the way it’s delivered to our subscribers today,” Winfrey said added.

Consumer groups say restrictive contracts are the epitome of anticompetitive industry behavior that should be examined by the Justice Department.

“Is it anticompetitive generally? Of course it is, they are keeping programming from their competitors,” said Gigi Sohn from Public Knowledge.

Satellite companies were originally in this same position, unable to carry popular cable networks on reasonable terms at fair prices until the 1992 Cable Act mandated reforms that required non-discriminatory access to cable programming. Online video providers have not yet been able to demand the same terms for their competing services.

In response to the deadly tornadoes in Moore, Okla., Cox Communications today said it would lift viewing restrictions for dozens of networks for Cox Cable customers who want to watch cable programming online using Wi-Fi or mobile broadband.

Cox video subscribers in Oklahoma can download the Cox TV Connect app (iOS or Android) to view streamed programming either inside or outside the home for the next three months. The cable operator said it had reached emergency agreements with programmers to lift the usual restrictions preventing online viewing away from home.

“We hope to help those impacted by providing access to TV on some mobile and tablet devices while the area recovers in the weeks and months ahead,” Cox spokesman Todd Smith told FierceCable in an email.

Cox now offers around 90 channels on its TV Connect platform.

Tornado-ravaged customers in Moore will need a lot longer than three months to get cable service back in many areas completely devastated by the storm.

Cox parent Cox Enterprises announced Tuesday that it plans to give $1 million to support relief and recovery efforts in Oklahoma, including a $500,000 cash donation to the American Red Cross and $500,000 of “in-kind support,” including public service announcements.

Stop the Cap! will be monitoring the situation in Moore and other parts of Oklahoma damaged in the storm. Most cable operators waive equipment fees for unreturned cable equipment lost in major storms. If a Cox customer is asked to pay for lost cable boxes, DVRs or cable modems, please use the Contact Us button at the top of the screen and report it to us for further investigation.