HomeEveryday MoneyRetirementFamily FinanceCareersReal EstateInvesting Money 101Best Places To LiveBest CollegesBest BanksBest Credit CardsVideosAdviser & ClientLove & MoneyMoney HeroesMagazine TIME LIFE ROAD TO WEALTHULTIMATE RETIREMENT GUIDETURNING POINTSLOVE AND MONEY NEWSLETTERSFEEDBACKPRIVACY POLICYYOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTSTERMS OF USEAD CHOICES RSSTIME APPSTIME FOR KIDSMEDIA KITADVERTISINGREPRINTS AND PERMISSIONSSITE MAPHELPCUSTOMER SERVICE© 2015 TIME INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. style=box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;> EVERYDAY MONEY PAY TV3 Moves to Cut Your Cable Bill Right Now Brad Tuttle @bradrtuttleJan. 6, 2015 SHARE Roger Lynch, chief executive officer for Sling TV LLC, speaks at a press conference during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 5, 2015.Michael Nagle—Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe annoying fees on your monthly Internet-TV bill probably just rose. But theres an easy trick to stop paying some fees entirely. Theres also a new way to cut your bill down to just $20 a month. According to the NPD Group, the average pay TV subscription package in the U.S. cost $86 per month in 2011, and projections call for that figure to hit $200 as soon as 2020. Thankfully, however, we may never get there. And there’s no reason you personally should be anywhere near there. The emergence ofmore options for cord cutters and a long-awaited increase in competition from satellite and streaming upstarts should loosen pay TV giants’ stranglehold on America’s monthly TV bills. Lowering your pay TV bill is very possible right now, though it’s up to you to take action. Here are three suggestions, based on recent shifts in what’s being offered in the marketplace: 1. Buy Your Own Modem How much you’ll save: $96 to $120 a year Cable TV companies have been experiencing a net loss of subscribers, and it’s no mystery why: The combination of awful customer service and rising monthly bills from pay TV giants, plus expanded streaming optionsfor Internet-only viewing, have together chased consumers away from traditional bloated and overpriced pay TV packages. Comcast and Time Warner Cable understand that blatantly jacking up monthly package prices is likely to turn even more customers into cord cutters. So as a sneaky alternative, both just hiked an assortment of fees instead. Specifically, both raised the rental fees for customers using the company’s modems. You might not even notice the fee on your bill because the word “modem” isn’t stated; instead a vague “Voice/data Equipment” line item is listed. For Comcast customers, that line item went up from $8 to $10 per month at the start of the year. Time Warner Cable, meanwhile, raised its monthly modem fee from $5.99 to $8, a hike of over 30%, while also boosting the monthly nickel-and-dime sports channel fee (on top of your regular package price) from $2.25 to $2.75. These bill hikes may seem like small potatoes—a few bucks extra per month—but they’re galling nonetheless because they’re cash cows for pay TV companies and, in the case of the modem at least, there’s an easy way to drop the fee to $0. David Lazarus, the consumer beat columnist for theLos Angeles Times, noted that anyone can simply purchase a Time Warner-compatible modem for $90 to $130 rather than leasing one. By raising modem fees, the pay TV companies give customers more reason than ever to go this route, as the investment will pay off sooner, roughly in a year. (Lazarus also pointed out the shady way that Time Warner Cable upgraded customer modems “for free” recently, only to follow up with a monthly fee hike; it’s just this sort of deceptive double talk that insults customers’ intelligence and will push subscribers away, if for no other reason than spite.)
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 01:05:00 +0000
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