Comcast CEO Brian Roberts was quoted today as saying that cable companies can't keep raising prices forever. But Comcast is reportedly doing just that again, with price increases in some markets slated for October 1.
Roberts discussed rising prices at a Goldman Sachs conference, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"You can't keep raising the price forever," Roberts said, referring to cable bundles. While content prices are driving up pay-TV bills, Roberts added that "these things have a way of correcting and balancing out before something draconian happens."
Although the cost of programming is often blamed for rising cable TV prices, Internet prices are going up, too. Comcast price increases have been staggered by region throughout the year. They hit Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Delaware at the beginning of 2015, coming later to Atlanta. The latest reports of price increases come from New Mexico and Oregon.
"On average, customer bills nationwide will increase by 3.4 percent," The Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday.
Entry-level rates are getting bigger increases, about 4.5 percent for TV and Internet service, The Oregonian reported last week.
"The cost of Comcast's standard, 140-channel Digital Starter package is rising by $3.25 a month to $75.74," the newspaper wrote. "The cost of its standard Performance Internet service is increasing by $3 a month, to $69.95; the company's rate cards indicate speeds will climb from 50 to 75 megabits per second."
These are the standard Comcast prices rather than the promotional ones customers typically get for the first 12 months of service.
Comcast occasionally upgrades Internet speeds without immediately raising prices, but it eventually boosts the price, too. This year's increase is "in line with the company's average annual increase over the past decade, but more than triple the rate of inflation in the Portland area," The Oregonian wrote.
The current US inflation rate is slightly above zero. The full-year 2014 inflation rate was 1.6 percent.
The Albuquerque Journal story said that customers are being notified of the increased prices in their September bills.
“We continue making investments in our network and technology to give customers more for their money, including more video across platforms, better experiences like X1 and faster Internet service,” a Comcast spokesperson told the newspaper. “We periodically need to adjust prices due to increases we incur in programming, business costs and new technology.”
We asked Comcast for more information and the company said, "as in previous years, [the price increase is taking effect] on a market-by-market basis." We also asked for a full list of all the new prices but did not receive one.
Comcast has been losing video customers, but the decline is slowing down, while broadband subscriptions are rising. The nation's largest cable company has 22.5 million Internet subscriptions compared to 22.3 million video ones.
Although streaming video has taken away some cable TV subscribers, Roberts said Internet video is "more friend than foe" to Comcast, because Comcast supplies broadband access to subscribers and programming to online video services.
Comcast is also looking to boost business revenue with a new enterprise services unit that will sell products to Fortune 1000 and other large companies.
reader comments
102