Cable Rates

Comcast Cable will reduce monthly charges for some services by 5 percent to 7 percent for its 250,000 subscribers in Baltimore, Howard and Harford counties this month.The reduction, which takes effect Thursday, is a response to the 1992 Cable Act and subsequent action by the Federal Communications Commission to lower cable rates.The FCC is mandating reductions in areas where there is little or no competition."Almost every Comcast customer will see a rate decrease," Comcast spokesman David Nevins said.

Outside of Barack Obama, one of Tuesday's biggest winners was CNN, which not only presented the best journalism but also finished first among cable channels in viewers. According to Nielsen's Fast Ratings, CNN was seen by an average audience of 8.8 million total viewers from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. election night. It also had audiences of 4.4 million adults ages 25 to 54 and 2.7 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 34. That topped perennial ratings winner Fox News, which had an audience of 8.7 million total viewers, with 3.5 million and 1.2 million in the key demos.

I don't spend all my free time at home watching television. It just seems that way to my wife and kids. Never pass up the chance to see a classic movie for the 23rd time, or Monster Truck Crunchers, or a documentary on African wildebeest or reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Captain Couch Potato at the duty station.All of which is to say that I have a strongly vested interest in what happens to cable TV rates, which are going up again.For the majority of households today, television means cable TV. Not as a luxury, but as a basic service.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected tomorrow to ban future - and nullify existing - exclusivity contracts between cable television providers and apartment building owners. The move is designed to open the doors for competitors, potentially driving down prices. Groups such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. lobbied for change, hoping to gain new customers in Maryland and elsewhere while taking on cable television leaders such as Comcast Corp. But traditional cable companies and those representing apartment building managers criticized the move, arguing that the action will hurt renters.

WASHINGTON -- As the newest federal effort to reduce cable television prices nominally takes effect this week, government regulators are struggling to navigate between two rather contradictory goals: bringing lower prices to consumers and encouraging a cornucopia of new electronic services.Most consumers will not see any change on their bills until July, because the uncertainty about the new rules is so great that the Federal Communications Commission has given cable companies two months to figure out the regulations and reset their prices.

WASHINGTON -- Six months after the Federal Communications Commission promised cable TV customers $1 billion in annual rate rollbacks, the agency confirmed yesterday what many consumers have argued: Cable rates actually seem to be rising."

The Federal Communications Commission, spurred by consumer complaints about cable rates that rose despite a law designed to cut them, yesterday issued "letters of inquiry with investigatory overtones" to 16 cable operators, including three in Maryland.Fifteen of the companies that received the letters are local systems, but the list also includes Tele-Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable operator. TCI earned its way onto the list because of a memo from a company executive that urged local-system managers to raise rates for a number of services and to blame the government for the increases.

The legislation passed in the Senate to reform telecommunications laws has sweeping implications for the cable and broadcasting industries -- as well as for consumers of some of their services.For starters, the bill essentially would deregulate cable rates. In the short run, this could lead both to higher cable rates along with wider experimentation in selection and packaging of programming.In the long run, the bill would set the table for unprecedented competition between cable and phone companies, allowing both offer customers a single supplier for television and telephone services.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission proposed new rules yesterday that would give some communities more power to limit prices for local cable television service.Under the existing FCC rules, only about 3 percent of the nation's more than 9,500 cable television systems have their rates regulated. The new rules, if enacted by the agency, could give local governments a powerful new weapon to block rate increases.In recent years, cable television rates have doubled and tripled in many cities.

For cable television subscribers nationwide, 1996 is starting to look a lot like 1986.After a lull in recent years, cable rates are spiking up again -- more sharply than at any time since Congress deregulated the industry in the 1980s. In mail boxes from New York City to Norfolk, Va., and Seattle to Sacramento, Calif., cable subscribers have received the unwelcome news that their monthly bills are going up 5 percent to 20 percent.By June, when Tele-Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable operator, implements its across-the-board rate increase of percent, most of America's 63 million cable subscribers will be paying up to $3.50 more a month to watch CNN, MTV and the other channels that are part of basic cable service.

DALLAS - The ability to buy cable-TV service a channel at a time, rather than bundled by the dozens, might cost most families more, not less, money, the Federal Communications Commission concluded in a report released yesterday. Most Americans watch too many TV channels for government-imposed a la carte pricing to reduce rising cable rates, the FCC told Congress, which has been considering such regulations. Consumer and parents groups blasted the FCC study, saying it skewed the results in favor of the nation's large cable companies.

John Dunning spends several hours a weekend watching cable, mostly sports. But Dunning, 64, a metallurgist in Corvallis, Ore., says he has begun to think that his bill - $40 a month for about 50 channels - is high. He toyed with switching to satellite, but he receives high-speed Internet access through his cable provider, a service that satellite systems do not offer. And "it is a bit of a hassle to switch," he said. Dunning's attitude may not be unusual among cable subscribers. A recent report by the General Accounting Office shows that the average monthly rate for expanded basic cable service is $36.47.

WASHINGTON - Cable TV customers saw their rates rise an average of 8.2 percent last year, the Federal Communication Commission reported yesterday. The jump in rates for programming services and equipment marked the fifth straight year that cable prices had sharply outpaced general inflation, a trend that some consumer experts say reflects an industry monopoly. The FCC's annual report, for the 12-month period ending July 1, 2002, shows that average monthly charges increased: 3.7 percent for basic service, from $13.93 to $14.45.

Little more than a month after the end of federal regulation of cable rates, TCI Communications of Baltimore, the city's cable company, said yesterday it would raise the price for expanded basic service, the most popular choice, 6 percent next month.Customers who receive TCI's expanded basic package will see their bills increase from $28.93 to $30.66 a month, not including premium channels and other charges.TCI also said it would boost the price of basic cable, which includes broadcast network stations and a few additional channels, 2.7 percent, from $11.22 per month to $11.52 a month.

This week, regulations on the most popular tier of cable offerings will disappear, and many consumer advocates, government officials and analysts predict the cable industry will respond by jacking up monthly bills."

WASHINGTON -- The cost of watching cable television has soared at four times the rate of inflation in the last two years, despite federal controls meant to harness media monopolies.With those controls to be lifted next year -- making another price increase nearly certain -- lawmakers want to figure out how they can head off further cost increases while encouraging competition."I'm hoping the outcry will rise again," said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, the Oregon Democrat who is to testify Tuesday before the Senate commerce committee about his bill to freeze cable rates until the government can study why the promised competition never materialized.

WASHINGTON - Cable TV customers saw their rates rise an average of 8.2 percent last year, the Federal Communication Commission reported yesterday. The jump in rates for programming services and equipment marked the fifth straight year that cable prices had sharply outpaced general inflation, a trend that some consumer experts say reflects an industry monopoly. The FCC's annual report, for the 12-month period ending July 1, 2002, shows that average monthly charges increased: 3.7 percent for basic service, from $13.93 to $14.45.

Comcast is raising cable television rates -- 10.4 percent, or an extra $3.10 per month, in some cases -- for most of its nearly 300,000 customers in Baltimore, Harford and Howard counties.The new rates, which take effect Nov. 1, are 37 percent higher than cable charges five years ago. Full standard service, which includes all but premium movie channels, will cost from $30.79 to $33.49 per month in the three counties.But Jaye S. Gamble, Comcast Corp. area vice president, said comparisons with 1992 are misleading because the company now offers double the number of channels in the full standard service package and also includes Home Team Sports, for which it once charged separately.

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday said he wants TCI Communications to justify a proposal to raise rates for cable service by as much as 40 percent for some customers.TCI Communications of Baltimore plans to increase the cost of basic cable service from $8.02 per month to $11.22 -- a change that the cable company said would affect about 3,500 customers who get the company's 24-channel package.Schmoke said the increase concerned him. "This is a significant rate increase for a level of service that has historically been intended to allow access for citizens to the most basic cable services, including local broadcast channels and various community programming," he said in a statement.

Bell Atlantic Corp. is looking to the sky for its latest television venture.In forging a marketing alliance with DirecTV Inc. and United States Satellite Broadcasting, the Northeast's dominant telephone provider is betting that direct broadcast satellite technology, or DBS, will continue to pluck off unhappy cable customers -- especially when it becomes as easy to get as calling the local phone company.Since first appearing in the early 1990s, DBS dishes -- typically the size of a large pizza -- have proliferated with astonishing speed.