In the early days of television, it was free. It still is, for people near big cities who get on-air signals directly and don’t want any fancy cable-only channels. But for most people in the mid-Hudson Valley, TV is far from free, with some enthusiasts spending well more than $100 a month for full-featured packages with add-ons.
That’s not counting the popular bundled deals that wrap in phone and broadband Internet service, too.
Bare-bones basic cable TV can be had for “up to $16.87,” according to Cablevision’s Web site. Time Warner Cable’s Web site doesn’t readily tell the price of basic, if it’s there at all.
What’s out there grows ever more varied as technology expands to carry a booming and sometimes bewildering proliferation of channels.
The choice of providers remains limited. Cable TV systems don’t compete against each other around here, so each town has only one franchise, even though federal law requires they be non-exclusive. There’s satellite TV, which has been growing in popularity, with two choices, DirecTV and Dish Network.
On the horizon is Verizon, with its FiOS TV, a promising new approach over fiber-optic phone lines that has not yet made its way into the mid-Hudson Valley but likely will in coming years, bringing another form of TV competition.
“It’s very expensive,” said Geraldine Johnson, who gets Cablevision at her Hopewell Junction home. “It’s so expensive, you just don’t know whether to keep it or not.”
With a bill running around $80 a month, she decided to drop the HBO movie service she had tried after deciding, “There wasn’t really anything on that I wanted to see.”
Theoretically, more competition holds down prices, which, nationwide, are rising faster than the general rate of inflation.
In December, the Federal Communications Commission released a report showing in 2004 cable prices nationwide rose an average of 5.2 percent for basic service, extra programming and equipment such as set-top boxes. From 1995, the rise totaled 93 percent.
Prices are 17 percent lower where cable competition is present, the report said.
Where direct satellite broadcasting is available, it did not appear to bring cable prices down, even where its penetration met the standard for “effective competition” by reaching 15 percent of homes, the commission said.
That 15 percent threshold in a given market can trigger the end of federal regulation of basic service prices there, under commission rules.
One observer of the broadcast scene, Michael Lanari of Beacon’s cable television committee, believes that threshold will be met soon, based on how many satellite dishes are showing up and the likely advent of Verizon’s FiOS.
Cablevision officials did not provide town-by-town basic subscriber rates when requested.
“We’ll be communicating those details directly to our customers in their individual notifications,” spokesman Jim Maiella said in an e-mail. He said there’s no 2007 price increase in “Family Cable,” also called expanded basic.
In November, Cablevision put out a statement saying average cable pricing would be up 1.1 percent on average across all levels of service.
The news release said “the 2007 adjustment continues a history of less significant increases in recent years, as the company has expanded its base of cable television customers and grown its online and voice businesses.”
That bottom-rung basic cable service, intended to make TV available to those with limited budgets, is rising at much faster rates than the Cablevision press releases would suggest.
Beacon’s basic rate in 2006 jumped to $13.03 from $11.17 a month, plus a 5.25 percent local franchise fee to the city and a 7 cent federal tax, a spokesman said then. That’s a jump of 16.7 percent.
Those franchise fees, by the way, are now worth about $150,000 to the city.
Most customers take something more elaborate than basic, including digital, high definition or phone and Internet service.
Cablevision adds digital signals and options for $9.95 a month, and packages in another 38 channels. The iO Silver package adds another 29 channels and costs $67.95. The top-of-line package is iO Gold for $87.95, which brings another 28 channels.
Phone, Internet service deals
Special deals are offered for adding in phone and Internet service. You should talk to a customer service representative to get a clear answer about how much the package costs after the special term is over.
Time Warner’s digital cable starter pack goes for $49.95 a month. There are numerous extra channels or add-on packages available. A Time Warner spokeswoman did not return calls for comment.
Measured another way, prices are getting better, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association said. In terms of real price-per-viewing-hour, cable costs fell from 24.16 cents per viewing hour in 1995 to 19.3 cents in 2005, expressed in 1995 dollars, the group said.
Satellite providers are advancing and essentially holding cable’s overall numbers from growing.
“We view this as a very competitive marketplace and it has been for some years now,” Joyce Sims, a spokeswoman for the cable association, said.
The satellite folks mince no words in selling their alternative.
“Current cable television customers know the reality of cable all too well: The bills keep getting bigger and the service keeps getting poorer,” reads the claim on the Boston-based satellitetv-hq.com Web site.
Any satellite service requires installing a dish, a receiver and a remote control. Internet service can be packaged in, as can HD, or high-definition, for extra charges. Phones aren’t part of these deals.
DirecTV, the nation’s largest with more than 15 million subscribers, offers a basic package of 155 channels for $49.95 with 18 local channels included. A 250-channel pack is $100.
DirecTV could not be reached for comment, but its third quarter report for 2006 said gross subscriber additions fell 9 percent, while higher quality subscribers — those who buy more services — grew 7 percent. Those subscribers “tend to buy more services — particularly high definition and digital video recorder services,” the release said.
EchoStar’s Dish Network, with more than 13 million subscribers, offers an economical “DishFamily Pak” of 40 channels for $19.95 and 23 local channels for an extra $5.99 a month. The “America’s Everything Pak” runs at $84.99 for 230 channels.
DISH Network lays claim to being “the fastest-growing pay-TV provider in the nation since 2000,” a recent news release said, “having added more than 7.74 million net new customers over the past six years — more than all other satellite TV and cable companies during the same period.”
Reach is better
One plus for satellite TV is it can reach just about anywhere. Some cable networks don’t reach all the way into rural hills and valleys.
Growth isn’t over. Patrick MacElroy, a Cablevision spokes-man, said the company has added basic cable customers in its tri-state area in each of the last 10 quarters. It has also recorded “explosive growth in our signature Optimum Online high-speed Internet and voice businesses.”
“Double Play” and “Triple Play” packaging of multiple services has paid off for Cablevision. It has more than 2 million Optimum Online customers and more than 1.1 million Optimum Voice customers, MacElroy said.
One form of competition that isn’t likely to happen is cable versus cable. Nothing bars it, but the practicality isn’t often there, Sims said.
“Two different companies need to go in and get two franchises and physically lay two separate cables,” she said. “One doesn’t necessarily want to compete against another one.”
In big cities, there may be “overbuilders” such as RCN Corp. that uses the physical networks of cable companies but cuts its own deals for programming. This occurs in parts of New York City, but has not been seen in the mid-Hudson region.
Another reason why cable versus cable isn’t likely is that they’ve got other things to do.
Cable companies are busy fending off satellite competitors with one hand while the other hand grabs market share in the Internet and phone spaces.
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