Doesn't that sound like double-standard pricing to you? For Cox Cable and others like it, they don't care about saving money for their existing customers; they just like to bait the new customers in with lower prices, while still charging their current customers the higher prices, and hook the newer customers for half a year or so.
Meanwhile, you call the cable company to ask for the lower prices, and they rudely tell you that you can't because you already have the same services and the offer is for new customers only.
This is what's wrong with cable monopolies. Nevermind there is competetion from satellite TV providers offering programming that you can't easily time your VCR to tape while you're away. Cable prices remain as high as can be. They raise the prices for all of us regular customers, then they offer lower prices for new customers, while still charging you and I the same high prices for the same services, and tell you you can't have the lower prices because you're an older customer.
Some lower pricing competetion has created...as long as you're a new customer. This is unfair, pure and simple.
Do we see Pizza Hut and Domino's offering $5 large pizzas for new customers only, while refusing to honor the older customers requests for the same $5 deal they heard on the radio or saw on TV? No. Do we see Wal Mart offering the lowest prices to only their newest customers while making the regulars pay a higher price? No. So why the hell is Cox Cable so unfair when it comes to giving the current customers a lower price for the same services they are offering new customers concurrently?
The practices of Cox Cable, Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia, and other cable companines, have seen rate hikes go on upward, while offering more channels of redundant and repeating fare, forcing you to accept paying for channels you don't watch in order to get channels you do want to watch, freely passing on the costs of high programming by the satellite channel providers
Are the cable companies doing a thing to pressure ESPN and other basic cable channels to lower their costs? No. Disney, being as greedy as ever, forces the cable companies to pay up to about $5 for their five ABC-owned channels on basic cable, none of which I watch regularily, (ESPN, ESPN2, ABC Family, Disney Channel, Lifetime). Why can't I get Cox to block out those five channels I don't need, and get the rest I do want such as Comedy Central, Fox News, and Game Show Network (which belongs on Analog and not digital cable), and charge me less. I don't see the pizza places forcing me to buy everything pizzas and charging a high fee in order to get the toppings I want to eat. Cable and satellite programmers should be forced by U.S. Congress to honor requests to drop channels and lower the prices of the subscribers' monthly bills.
Besides, Disney Channel is a complete joke. Nothing but reruns of saturday morning cartoons all day and night. Who cares to watch Kim Possible 27 times a week? Put it back on pay cable and charge me less.
Cable television needs to be regulated since they're doing nothing to practice fair pricing values, while brainlessly continuing to pass along price increases demanded by the satellite program providers. At the same time, Cox Cable and others also need to start offering lower price specials equally for all of the customers, not just the new ones.
Excerpts of legal disclaimer of Cox's offers:
Cox Digital Cable: Discount of $5 per month for 6 months on Cox Digital Cable available only to new digital cable customers who subscribe to Cox’s $15 digital cable programming package. HBO/Cinemax: Premium services discount of $5 per month for 6 months limited to Cox Digital Cable customers who add HBO and Cinemax or any two premium services during the offer period. Cox High Speed Internet: Discount of $5 per month for 6 months available only to new Cox High Speed Internet customers. Cox Digital Telephone: Offer expires 9/21/03 pending PUC approval. Discount of $5 per month for 6 months is available only to new, residential telephone customers in Cox Digital Telephone serviceable area in San Diego who subscribe to one measured or flat rate residential access line. Customer electing the Connection 60/90/200 or Unlimited Connection Packages are not eligible for discount.
Now you see how unfair the double-pricing standards of Cox Cable are.
Also to blame are telephone companies such as SBC/Yahoo! offering DSL for a lower price for new customers only, while making their current customers pay $20 more a month. This is also unfair.
Here's a letter I wrote to the newspaper editors of the local newspapers.
Dear Editor:
Here's something I don't think anyone has brought up.
Cox Cable is offering subscribers $5 off for new subscribers to their digital
telephone and cable, plus high-speed internet, and pay services for six months.
The restriction? You have to be a new customer in order to enjoy the lower
prices.
That is unfair to the rest of us. I don't see pizza places offering $5 pizzas to new
customers only, and making the older customers pay $14 for the same offering.
Cox Cable needs to rethink their unfair marketing practices and stop
this double-standard pricing and offer the same lower prices for the rest of us
regular older customers just for the asking.
David Tanny
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
San Diego, CA xxxxxxxxxx
tel: xxx-xxx-xxxx
(1) Proposal Title: Name your proposal.
The Equal Cable Pricing Act
(2) Issue: Identify what issue your law is addressing. For example: healthcare, taxes etc.
This addresses the problem with cable companies offering prices for their services that are lower than normal for their new customers, however its determined, but charging the regular customers full price for the same services the newer customers are getting for a discount.
(3) The Problem: Talk about the current problems and issues of concern. Why should there be a change in law?
Cable companies often buy advertising spots for radio and TV, offering specials such as half-price on a few pay channel services such as HBO or Showtime, $5 off a month off the regular price of their basic cable offering, $5 off for their cable Internet service offering, and other specials that both new and existing cable customers are hearing and reading about in the ad spots.
Both kinds of people named above want the same discounts. The existing cable customers, however, cannot enjoy the same discounts they've heard on the radio because the cable company is restricting the discounted offers to new customers only. Even though they phone their cable company and ask that they get the same discounted offering they heard on the radio, the cable company rep tells them the offer is for new customers only.
To me, this sounds like double-standard pricing; this is like charging prices based on race. Double-standard pricing based on race is illegal; it should be the same for people based on whether they are current customers or not. Does the cable company no longer care about saving their customers money?
Some lower pricing competetion from satellite providers has provided for consumers. The catch is that you can't already be an existing customer in order to enjoy the lower prices. This isn't what was intended when cable was deregulated ten years ago.
Do we see the fast food outlets offering 99 cent hamburgers for new customers only, and charging their regulars $3.99 for the same burger? No.
Then cable companies should not have the power to offer two prices for new and existing prices for the same services either. If an existing customer, after hearing the low priced offers on the radio or television, wishes to get the lower priced offer for the services they already have such as digital cable, pay services, high speed internet, telephone, and basic, then the cable company should honor the customer's request without question.
Cable companies need to rethink their unfair marketing practices and stop this double-standard pricing and offer the same lower prices for the rest of us regular older customers just for the asking.
(4) My Proposal: What do you propose? Is there an existing law that you want changed? Is there a need for a law that does not exist?
My proposal is for a law that will make it illegal for cable, satellite, telephone, Internet, or DSL providers to deny their current paying customers (the billed subscribers) requests to honor the special prices advertised in the media intended to get newer customers.
Comments: Add any additional comments or information that you think is important.
If a cable company is offering a pay service for a reduced price for six months to newer customers, and the existing customer, who already has the same services, asks the cable company for the same offer, those requests should be honored, plain and simple.
So why are cable companies being so unfair when it comes to giving the current customers a lower price for the same services they are offering new customers concurrently?
The practices of Cox Cable, Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia, and other cable companines, have seen rate hikes go on upward, while offering more channels of redundant and repeating fare, forcing you to accept paying for channels you don't watch in order to get channels you do want to watch, freely passing on the costs of high programming by the satellite channel providers
Are the cable companies doing a thing to pressure ESPN and other basic cable channels to lower their costs? No. Disney, being as greedy as ever, forces the cable companies to pay up to about $5 for their five ABC-owned channels on basic cable, none of which I watch regularily, (ESPN, ESPN2, ABC Family, Disney Channel, Lifetime). Why can't I get Cox to block out those five channels I don't need, and get the rest I do want such as Comedy Central, Fox News, and Game Show Network (which belongs on Analog and not digital cable), and charge me less. I don't see the pizza places forcing me to buy everything pizzas and charging a high fee in order to get the toppings I want to eat. Cable and satellite programmers should be forced by U.S. Congress to honor requests to drop channels and lower the prices of the subscribers' monthly bills.
Cable television needs to be regulated since they're doing nothing to practice fair pricing
values, while continuing to pass along price increases demanded by the satellite program
providers.
Cable to Hike Prices Again Thanks to ESPN...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co.'s sports channel juggernaut
ESPN is expected to announce this week a 20 percent rate increase on Aug 1,
cable and satellite television broadcasters said on Wednesday.
The hike comes as operators are loudly protesting the cost of
programming, especially ESPN, even though the network is considered
crucial by many cable and satellite companies and the price increase
is in line with past years.
Cable and Satellite TV providers such as DirecTV said that they would
pay it despite opposing the rate hike and also said they would try
to reduce programming costs.
Industry sources said ESPN contracts
typically allow the channel to raise rates up to 20 percent annually,
and for years it has chosen the maximum, and the cost of ESPN for cable
and satellite operators amont to more than $2 per customer per month,
many times more than what other popular cable channels cost.
Those costs are passed on to the subscribers' monthly bills, but not
listed individually as a $2 ESPN item so to speak.
ESPN says that sports are expensive to produce (rights fees alone amount
to hundreds of millions of dollars in rights fees alone for several
major sports packages) and adds that the wholesale cost per subscriber
amonts to roughly seven cents a day.
According to Yahoo News,
New York's Cablevision recently ended a standoff over broadcasting New
York Yankees baseball with a temporary agreement that limited the
operator's cost for the channel.
Cable operator Cox Communications Inc. (which has prescence in San
Diego) has been a vocal opponent of
sports costs, which Chief Executive Jim Robbins on March 13 said had
contributed to more than half the 12 percent increase in programming
costs the company faced last year.
"Under the law, we can pass the entire cost of programming on to our
customers -- but what businessman in his right mind would hike prices
by double digits every year?" Robbins said.
"They charge us outrageous prices, and Cox has to deliver the bad news to consumers."
Operators gathered at a Kagan World Media conference in New York on Wednesday also bemoaned sports costs.
Rocco Commisso, chief executive of cable operator Mediacom
Communications Inc, said Disney, which reports quarterly earnings on
Thursday, was making up for tough times at other units, such as cruise
ships plagued by passenger illness, and theme parks.
"My customers should not have to subsidize the fact that Disneyland
parks aren't filled with customers, or the fact that they had to
disinfect their cruise ships," Commisso told the conference.
(Additional reporting by Kenneth Li in New York)
Commentary by D.T.:
Frankly, this is getting ridiculous. Sure, I love to watch the big
league games when I get time off from my work projects to see the ball games,
but $2 a month to pay for the network foolishly signing overpriced
contracts for what is essentially giving the leagues a 2-3 hour window
to effectively promote their own sport without cost on the sports league's
part is a poor way to market their sport to non-fans of the MLB,
NFL, NCAA, NBA, NHL, and other leagues.
Two dollars extra a month on the subscriber's part to help subsidize an overpriced
TV sports package just shows how corrupt and greedy many of the sports
leagues have gotten over the past two decades with sports rights escalating
higher and higher every five years and doing nothing on their part
to self contain the costs of the escalating salaries of players that
are overpaid for producing not enough and remaining non-stars that don't stand
out to the masses like earlier generations of major league sports players
did back through the early 90's.
Without marquee talent that brings in the most casual of sports fans, stadiums
cannot fill, and the sports franchises lose money when they play games.
The sports leagues don't bother to contain the costs of doing business.
Instead, it forces cable subscribers to subsidize a sinking sports industry
with surcharges from ESPN, ABC, and other networks passed on to the consumer
with higher monthly cable fees that trickle down to the cable operators,
and then to the cable networks that own the broadcast rights, and finally,
to the sports leagues demanding high amounts of money to continue to operate
a business that is loosing fans that cannot afford to pay for the costs
of going to their games anymore.
Disney, which owns and operates ABC stations in New York, Los Angeles,
and other cities, had a feud with Time Warner cable two years at this time
over Disney's demand that TW pay more to carry their ABC stations on cable.
TW responded by dropping the ABC stations from their New York city cable
systems for two days, instead, showing a message saying that "Disney Has
Taken ABC Away From You".
In 1999, KGTV 10, which is an ABC affilliate and is owned by McGraw-Hill
Broadcasting and not Disney, had a tiff with Disney's ABC network over
a similar issue. Disney, which just paid the NFL a billion dollars
or so for eight years to carry their games in 1997, decided to soak
their ABC affilliates such as KGTV by demanding that the TV stations,
most of which cost them a lot of money to staff their news departments
that provide local news programming, pay for ABC programming instead of the
traditional other way around to help pay for the costs of the company's
NFL package Monday nights. KGTV and other ABC affilliates responded in kind
by dropping several optional carriage ABC programming from their lineups
such as Port Charles, Politically Incorrect, and Mickey Mouse Works among
others; some went further and replaced some of the network's dog programming
with public affairs programming. The costs of sports programming isn't just
hitting the cable subscribers, but it's hitting the ABC affilliates too,
so much that it costs too much for any TV station in the El Centro-Yuma
metro zone to afford to carry ABC in that area.
The root of the problem of escalating costs lies in the sports leagues themselves,
and legislation in Congress needs to be initiated with bills that will allow
cable TV operators to offer high-cost cable TV channels such as ESPN the option
to be placed on an ala-carte package (digital or analog). If ESPN and other high-cost
channels are placed on the analog broadband as it always was, a filter can be inserted
between the feeder cable and the drop cable to block the channels for subscribers
that wish to save as much as $5 a month for a package of channels they don't care
to watch or pay for.
Furthermore, I wish Cox Cable could be allowed to block a couple of dozen useless
cable channels I never bother to watch. Most people watch less than 12 channels
regularily, so why not offer subscribers a 12 channel package of channels full
of stations they reguarily watch; bigger channel packages also allowed.
Allow me to not pay for useless cable channels I never watch. Not a day goes by
that I never think of tuning in Lifetime, Disney Channel, ABC Family, USA Network,
Sci Fi Channel, Bravo, A&E, Food, Travel, HGTV, Animal Planet, PAX, MTV (especially
MTV), VH1, BET, AMC, TCM, FX (I seen all the MASH and 90210 reruns), WB 5 and UPN 13
since Sabrina and Buffy are ending their runs and their networks are otherwise pure crap,
KGTV 10 since ABC itself is not worth my time anymore, MSNBC, CNBC, Shop NBC, QVC, HSN,
Court TV, TV Guide Channel, and E!
That alone could save me enough money for me to afford HBO!
from news.yahoo.com:
Disney Profit Dips 11 Percent Due to War...
The Walt Disney Co. reported an 11 percent drop in quarterly net income on Thursday as unexpectedly strong box office successes like "Chicago" failed to offset the Iraq war's impact on theme parks and television operations...
Halos no longer fit at Dis...
LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- The Walt Disney Co. has agreed in principle to sell the World Series champion Anaheim Angels to Phoenix businessman Arturo Moreno for about $180 million, sources close to the negotiations said Tuesday.
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