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.<\/p>\n
Here is a breakdown of all the new broadcast TV fees.<\/p>\n
AT&T U-verse raised its \u201cBroadcast TV\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Comcast jumped its \u201cBroadcast TV\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Cox jumped its \u201cBroadcast TV\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
DIRECTV this year introduced a $2.56 a month regional sports fee. This is a new fee it did not have in the past.<\/p>\n
RCN raised its \u201cBroadcast TV\u201d fee an extra $1.25 a month and raised its $2.25 a month sports fee. RCN also has a fee called the \u201centertainment network fee,\u201d which was also raised by $2.50 a month. In total that is an extra $6 a month just in fees.<\/p>\n
So maybe it\u2019s 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\u2014not 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.<\/p>\n