With the new year has come the typical flood of rate hikes and new fees from cable TV companies. This year it seems as though one of the ways they are hiking your TV bill is by charging higher cable fees for local channels you could get for free.
Here is a breakdown of all the new broadcast TV fees.
Cable Fees for Broadcast Channels by Provider
AT&T
AT&T U-verse raised its “Broadcast TV” fee from $5 to $6 a month. That means you will pay $72 every year and over a 2-year contract you will pay an extra $144 over the advertised rate.
Comcast
Comcast jumped its “Broadcast TV” Fee from $5 to $7 a month. You will now pay $84 a year and over a 2-year contract you will pay $168 to watch your local channels.
Charter
Charter in the past never had a broadcast TV fee. Now it is adding a $4.47 a month fee for local channels. This will cost you $53.64 over a year and $107.28 over the life of a 2-year contract.
Cox Communications
Cox jumped its “Broadcast TV” fee from $3 to $4 a month and raised its regional sports network fees from $2.60 to $6 a month. That means you will pay $10 a month for the right to see local sports and local TV every year costing you $120 or $240 over a 2-year contract.
DIRECTV
DIRECTV this year introduced a $2.56 a month regional sports fee. This is a new fee it did not have in the past.
RCN
RCN raised its “Broadcast TV” fee an extra $1.25 a month and raised its $2.25 a month sports fee. RCN also has a fee called the “entertainment network fee,” which was also raised by $2.50 a month. In total that is an extra $6 a month just in fees.
Maybe it’s time to get an antenna…
So maybe it’s time to get an antenna to replace your cable company. I recently did this for my parents. A few years ago they paid $22 a month just to get local channels—not even in HD. I set them up with an antenna, and not only did they get every channel cable gave them, but they got many of them in HD for $0 a month.
If you need help picking out the right antenna or want to see what channels you can get where you live check out Mohu’s antenna recommendation tool.
