Charter Communications is once again raising rates on Spectrum cable customers. Readers are notifying us that their October billing statements in certain regions show new, higher pricing for certain services. Charter typically adjusts prices at least once, but sometimes twice annually, gradually rolling the higher prices out across the country.

The most important include:

• Another $5 rate hike for the Standard Internet plan (100 or 200 Mbps). Depending on your bundle, prices are increasing from $54.99 for broadband and television customers to $59.99. Standalone internet customers in some areas are seeing a $1 increase from $64.99 to $65.99 a month. If rates are increasing for your plan, share it with us in the comment section.
• Spectrum’s basic set-top box, formerly $5.99 a month with a mandatory $1 Secure Connection surcharge is increasing to $7.50 a month, effectively a $0.51 increase per box.
• The Broadcast TV Surcharge is also increasing once again by an average of around $1 a month. For many areas, this surcharge is now approaching $10 a month and applies to all cable television customers. Charter claims it is passing on the costs of retransmission consent agreements it has signed with local TV stations in your area. The amount varies, depending on what stations in your area charge Spectrum.

There are likely other rate adjustments not noted here. Many customers who bundle services may not see the full extent of the rate hikes because of bundling discounts, with the exception of the Broadcast TV Surcharge, which is not subject to being waived or discounted.

Subscribers can find the current rate card for their area on a special section of Spectrum’s website, although not all rate cards are provided.

Rupert Murdoch’s slimmed-down television empire will refocus on targeting America’s red states and live sports fans who may have wagered on those popular online casinos.

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After Murdoch completes the sale of most of 21st Century Fox and its studios to either Disney or Comcast, the “New Fox” that will remain will include Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, the Fox television network, MyNetworkTV, some sports channels, and 28 owned and operated local television stations. In short, it will be a $23 billion company focused almost entirely on legacy television.

To maximize the value of those remaining assets, “New Fox” will double down on live television to attract and hold the “core Fox viewer,” one who instinctively watches Fox News, enjoys live sports, and more than likely lives in a conservative-leaning state.

Brandon Ross, an analyst at BTIG Research, believes “New Fox’s” crown jewel will be the Fox News Channel, not the Fox television network.

“The strongest asset that’s in their portfolio going forward is Fox News,” Ross said, noting that dedicated viewers of the network will likely see promotions from other Fox-owned networks that will increasingly cater to the interests of the average Fox News viewer. Research shows Fox News attracts an older, conservative, and very loyal audience that is more likely than other demographic groups to also watch live television sports and pay for cable television.

Murdoch’s recent content deals hint he intends to increase Fox’s focus on live sporting events. Last week, CNN reported Fox acquired the rights to broadcast “WWE SmackDown” for the next five years. Earlier this year, it signed another five-year deal to air Thursday night NFL games.

Fox’s scripted television shows will likely take a hit as a result, as investments shift towards live news and expensive sports programming. Murdoch may be signaling it won’t continue trying to keep up in the battle between Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix vs. traditional linear/live television over scripted dramas, original movies, and other pre-produced content. Murdoch’s ability to rely on traditional scripted shows for revenue may also be waning as online content companies break the traditional 24-26 week ad-supported television season.

Netflix’s original content budget was around $6 billion in 2017, more than CBS spent on its own shows. This year it expects to spend up to $8 billion, more than CBS, FOX, and ABC. Fox can still fall back on the two strengths network television still commands — live news and sports. News programming, particularly the kind of political opinion shows Fox airs during the evening, are extremely cheap to produce and attract a loyal audience. Sports programming, in contrast, is extremely costly to acquire. But like news, surveys show more than 90% of viewers watch live, commercials and all.

Jay Rosenstein, a former CBS Sports executive, told CNN that is what makes sports so valuable for a legacy business like Fox.

“There’s been a certainty about sports programming that doesn’t exist with scripted or unscripted programs,” he added. “With sports, you have a known quantity.”

Live sports is one of the few types of programming left where viewers don’t instinctively reach for the remote to fast forward through advertising. Scott Rosner, the academic director of Columbia University’s Sports Management Program, said networks like Fox depend on that to make money.

“What that means is you are sticking around as the viewer,” Rosner said. “You’re far more likely to watch advertising that is being put in front of you.”

That adds up to a lot of advertising revenue because no other programming comes close to beating the ratings of live football games, according to Ross. Networks spend a lot on sports programming, but also earn a lot from lucrative and frequent ad breaks.

Networks opening their checkbooks to spend billions on sporting rights prefer long-term, stable contracts even if they have to spend more to get them. The streaming services, as well as some social media sites, are also dabbling in live sports streaming, and with their deep pockets, traditional broadcast networks could eventually be outbid. At Fox, they have about five years before they need to worry about renewing the contracts they just signed.

“New Fox” will also recoup some of their recent investments from viewers like you. Many expect Fox and their television stations will raise retransmission consent fees charged to your cable, phone, satellite, or online provider to carry Fox-owned networks and stations on the lineup.

Altice customers woke up on New Year’s Day to discover as many as 17 Starz and Encore premium movie channels missing from their lineup, replaced with little-watched alternative networks like The Cowboy Channel and Hallmark Drama.

It is the first retransmission consent dispute of 2018, and it began as 2017 ended. Altice issued a terse statement:

As of midnight December 31, 2017, Altice USA will no longer carry Starz or StarzEncore programming directly. Despite numerous attempts by Altice USA to reach a deal with Starz for continued carriage in video packages and a la carte carriage, Starz refused all offers, including an offer to extend our current arrangement.

Customers will not get a discount on their cable bill because of the loss of the premium movie networks. Instead, Altice quickly signed carriage agreements with several replacement basic cable networks including Hallmark Drama, Sony Movies, MGM HD, HD Net Movies, Flix, and Cowboy Channel. The last network on the list seemed an odd choice for the New York City market, featuring rodeos and rural living-oriented programming. Some customers were also placated with a replacement subscription to The Movie Channel.

Customers don’t consider the six replacements adequate for the loss of more than a dozen premium-priced movie channels, including STARZ, STARZ Edge, STARZ In Black, STARZ Comedy, STARZ Cinema, STARZ Kids & Family, STARZENCORE, STARZENCORE Action, STARZENCORE Classic, STARZENCORE Black, STARZENCORE Family, STARZENCORE Suspense, STARZENCORE Westerns, STARZENCORE Español and Movie Plex channels, and some plan to downgrade or cancel service.

Removing 17 channels and replacing them with 4, one of which is the cowboy channel is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. My bill is more than 200.00 per month, and the value for the money is definitely not worth it. Optimum is just plain greedy.

— Mary Anne Suttles (@Stormcloud2000) January 2, 2018

Altice has played hardball with programmers in the past, especially those that direct-sell their programming to consumers through online streaming. In follow-up remarks, Altice essentially told customers to go and buy Starz directly from Starz itself, and took a shot at the network claiming most of their customers don’t watch their movie channels anyway.

“We are focused on providing the best content experience for our customers and continually evaluate which channels meet their needs and preferences relative to the cost of the programming imposed by content owners,” Altice officials said in a statement. “Given that Starz is available to all consumers directly through Starz’ own over-the-top streaming service, we don’t believe it makes sense to charge all of our customers for Starz programming, particularly when their viewership is declining and the majority of our customers don’t watch Starz. We believe it is in the best interest of all our customers to replace Starz and StarzEncore programming with alternative entertainment channels that will provide a robust content experience at a great value.”

Altice did expand on what it felt were unfair terms being offered to it while consumers could get the same movies and original series for less money elsewhere:

“Since our last contract renewal, Starz began offering a direct to consumer streaming service for $8.99 per month. Given that Starz is available direct to consumer through their subscription service, we have been actively negotiating to reach a deal that makes sense for all our customers, and made numerous offers of increasing value and partnership structures.

Starz wanted an all or nothing-type deal and their insistence on terms would force us to charge customers more than what the Starz OTT product costs — that would not make sense for our customers. Given the limited viewership of Starz amongst our customer base and that consumers can get Starz directly, we believe this approach is in the best interest of all of our customers who otherwise would have seen an impact on prices due to Starz’ demands.

We have simply been seeking to do what Starz itself is doing: support a Starz a la carte product, whether through our sales channels or through their OTT service.

We have reached more than two dozen agreements over the last few months that reflect the company’s commitment to both negotiate fairly and keep costs down for customers. In addition to offers to maintain packaged distribution, we proposed extending our a la carte deal in Suddenlink to include Optimum and Starz refused – this despite the fact that Starz has a la carte only deals with other distributors. We also offered to help sell the Starz OTT service to our broadband customers and they refused. We also offered to extend our current agreements.”

Analysts say it is very uncommon for a cable company to encourage its customers to directly subscribe to a service traditionally sold by the cable operator itself. Altice sought to drive home their view that selling cable programming direct-to-consumers devalues the product for cable operators, especially if the programmer sells it directly to consumers at a lower retail price than a cable operator can can buy at the wholesale rate.

“Despite all of Altice’s assertions to the contrary, the facts in this dispute are simple. Altice wanted a drastic reduction in price that was totally inconsistent with the market and flew in the face of the record popularity of our programming,” Starz said in a statement that did not refute Altice’s cost claims.

Starz offers a 7-day free trial of its streaming app, which offers on-demand access to most titles found on Starz or Encore networks. After the free trial, the service is available for $8.99 a month or $89.99 a year, which offers a 17% discount off the monthly price. The website offers more information about supported devices and streaming policies.

Polka

The nation’s trade association for independent cable companies wants the FCC to prohibit broadcasters from blacking out TV stations during disasters and local emergencies.

The American Cable Association applauded the FCC’s intervention in the recent retransmission consent dispute between Dish Networks and Lilly Broadcasting, which resulted in the satellite provider losing access to a Caribbean-focused station for viewers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“The commission should find it intolerable for a broadcaster seeking to leverage higher retransmission consent fees to block viewers in a state of emergency from accessing critical, and potentially life‐saving, information,” wrote ACA president Matthew Polka. “It is no answer in such a situation for the broadcaster to suggest that viewers should switch providers or install antennas in order to access this information.”

ACA members, often small cable companies providing service in rural areas, also face station blackouts during tough contract renegotiation talks at a time when many stations are asking for unprecedented rate increases — sometimes 100% or more — in return for a carriage renewal agreement. Some stations have used whatever leverage they can find to pressure cable operators to agree to their terms, without disclosing to viewers just how much some stations are asking to renew those contracts. Most cable operators have passed those fees on to subscribers, which can easily add $5-7 a month to a cable television bill just for three or four local stations.

Lilly’s decision to blackout its One Caribbean TV channel left English-speaking viewers in Puerto Rico without an important news source. Most broadcast outlets on that island broadcast for the much larger Spanish-speaking population. The station was quickly returned to Dish’s lineup after it became a political issue.

Polka wants to make sure a similar situation does not happen in the future, so he’s asked the FCC to consider adding a requirement to the FCC’s “good faith” rules that govern acceptable behavior during retransmission consent negotiations forbidding stations from pulling their signal anywhere the FCC has activated its Disaster Information Reporting System, and to guarantee those signals will remain accessible for the duration of the event.

“We urge the commission to propose and seek comment on such a rule change as soon as possible in order to avoid consumer harm in future emergencies,” Polka told the FCC.

Dish Network satellite customers in Providence, R.I. are being offered free over-the-air digital antennas in preparation for another retransmission consent dispute with the area’s local ABC station.

Citadel Communications-owned WLNE-TV (6) is warning its contract to allow its signal to be carried over the satellite service expires Friday, Aug. 18 at 7 pm. With negotiations still ongoing, Dish is offering its Providence subscribers free installation of a free antenna to receive local Providence over the air stations if they also agree to cancel Dish’s local station add-on package (just under $10/month).

“We’ve been actively working to negotiate an agreement that keeps ABC6 available on Dish, but Citadel’s unbending attitude and outrageous demands show that this broadcaster has no intention of coming to a deal,” said Dish executive vice president of marketing, programming and media sales Warren Schlichting.

More and more consumers are amenable to switching back to free over the air reception to combat rising subscription costs, and providers are finding new ways to accommodate their customers, even at the risk of losing add-on fees from canceled local station packages.

Providence, R.I.

With local television station retransmission consent fees rising faster than other cable and satellite programming fees, some providers would prefer to drop local stations but cannot without alienating customers. The biggest impediment to getting customers to switch to over-the-air reception is signal quality.

In some markets, local station reception can vary considerably depending on where the customer watches. Digital reception problems cause pixelation and picture freezes, and correcting these can require regular antenna repositioning or an outdoor antenna, especially in fringe reception areas.

In Providence, several thousand Dish customers have switched back to over the air reception after being offered a free antenna, which offers as many as 45 free broadcast TV channels from Rhode Island and adjacent markets.