Your cable costs are going up for one reason — because they can

Q: Can you answer a question about Charter Cable? In March, CLOO went out of business so Charter simply deleted the channel. Then my next bill shows they are removing Chiller and Esquire in three weeks, but the price just went up. How can they do this?

A: I suppose for the same reason cans of tuna have gone from 6.5 to 5 ounces and yogurt cups have been downsized from 8 to 5.3 ounces yet cost more: because they can.

The pricing policies of companies are generally not regulated by the government so, even like the newspaper you’re reading, they can pretty much offer what they want and charge whatever they think the market will bear to stay in business and make a maximum profit. In Charter/Spectrum’s case, if you don’t like it, you can switch to dish or Internet streaming services or, like me, be satisfied with what comes free over the airwaves.

As you can probably guess, a lot of people don’t like it but apparently grin and bear it. In a 2015 survey by the national Council of Better Business Bureaus, cable and dish TV services wound up third on the bureau’s list of companies receiving the most complaints. That was right behind cellular telephone and other telephone communications companies — and it marked a 3 percent increase in the number of complaints over the previous year. A similar survey published last June by Consumer Reports uncovered the same customer dissatisfaction.

A story by the Los Angeles Times found that, like you, customers were irate over constantly changing channel bundles at higher prices along with the ceaseless push to sell TV-Internet-phone packages. And while some companies no longer lock customers in for long periods, it also means they can raise prices whenever they wish.

At the same time, the Consumer Reports study found consumers rated the value of all TV-Internet-phone packages as “poor.” Fewer than one in three said they were completely or very satisfied with their packages. The study was based on more than 172,000 people who subscribed to 54 providers.

In their defense, cable and dish companies must pay for the channels they offer. With more channels offering original programming, production costs are climbing. These costs are passed on to the cable company, which, in turn, pass them on to you. Plus, like all businesses, cable and dish companies also watch the cost of everything from employees to paper clips rise as well.

However, if you’d still like to vent, you’re invited to lodge a complaint at what the Federal Communications Commission is calling its more user-friendly website at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us.

Today’s trivia

Speaking of those 45-rpm singles that replaced the old 78s, who released the first one and when?

Answer to Friday’s trivia: In the 1860s, a group of Northern Democrats opposed to the Civil War argued for an immediate peace settlement with the South. Republicans began calling these anti-war Democrats “Copperheads,” comparing them to the deadly snake. The Copperheads, however, took the name as a badge of honor. They turned the copper “head” into the likeness of Liberty, which they actually cut from Liberty Head coins and wore like a medal of freedom. Many, however, were arrested after Lincoln had suspended the right of habeas corpus. As a matter of fact, the Copperheads’ de facto leader, Clement Vallandigham, was arrested shortly after his term as an Ohio representative ended in 1863, and Lincoln ordered him exiled to the Confederacy.

This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Your cable costs are going up for one reason — because they can."