FCC Outlaws Sleazy And Misleading Cable TV Fees
from the false-advertising-by-another-name dept
For decades, U.S. cable and broadband giants have advertised one price, then socked consumers with a much higher price once the bill actually arrives. This is usually accomplished via a bevy of bullshit below the line fees specifically built for the purpose.
Like “regulatory recovery fees,” which ambiguously blame government for prices hikes due to regulation that largely no longer exists. Or “broadcast TV surcharges,” which take some of the cost of programming and misleadingly bury it below the line. And then there’s stuff like Centurylink’s “Internet Cost Recovery Fee,” which the company’s website explains as such:
“This fee helps defray costs associated with building and maintaining CenturyLink’s High-Speed Internet broadband network, as well as the costs of expanding network capacity to support the continued increase in customers’ average broadband consumption.”
That is, of course, what your full bill is supposed to pay for.
For decades U.S. regulators turned the other cheek, treating this kind of stuff as little more than creative marketing. The Biden administration has taken a slightly harder stance against such “junk fees,” which are pretty much pervasive across all industries (especially banks, airlines, hotels, and telecom).
Case in point: the FCC last week released new rules for satellite and cable TV providers requiring that they advertise the “all in” cost of service, without playing obfuscation patty cake:
“These new rules require cable operators and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers to state the total cost of video programming service clearly and prominently, including broadcast retransmission consent, regional sports programming, and other programming-related fees, as a prominent single line item on subscribers’ bills and in promotional materials.”
It’s great to see, but the fact it took the agency thirty years to accomplish this kind of speaks for itself. Republican FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington voted against the proposal, which is par for the course given the tight alliance between shitty telecom and cable companies and the GOP.
A 2019 study by Consumer Reports found that 24 percent of your monthly cable bill is comprised of said bullshit fees, gleaning the cable sector $28 billion every year in additional revenue.
The cable industry is already pouting about the changes, threatening to sue, and complaining that the FCC is “micromanaging” a “highly competitive industry” and that it (an agency custom built to regulate telecom and cable) somehow lacks the authority to do its job. This industry is also mad about the agency’s plan for a “nutrition label for broadband” that requires transparency on pricing and service.
Granted one thing the FCC seems intent on not touching is the consolidation and monopoly problems that cause high prices in the first place. Entrenched broadband and cable providers still enjoy monopolies across vast swath of the country after working endlessly to undermine competition at every turn. The FCC can’t even admit this problem exists, much less propose meaningful policy solutions for it.
Instead of hard rhetoric against monopolization and mindless consolidation, or aggressive pro-competition policies (like overt support for community broadband projects) we tend to get performative regulatory theater: solutions that sort of nibble around the edges of the problem, often arrive decades late, and usually aren’t consistently enforced. But hey, it’s a start.
Filed Under: biden, competition, consolidation, consumer protection, fcc, fees, monopoly, tv
Comments on “FCC Outlaws Sleazy And Misleading Cable TV Fees”
cynicism
My cynicism says it won’t matter. The GOP will dismantle all this again, later.
Re:
In between now and then, they’ll also try to enable sleazy and misleading fees at the state level.
Re:
It won’t matter because it’s specific to cable TV. Not cable-based internet service, not cellphones, not streaming video services; in other words, not anything that people commonly sign up for. (For people who are already paying, it makes no difference that 5 line items could be replaced with 1. Most won’t even notice.)
A cynical person might say this whole thing is intended to distract the FCC from regulating anything that matters. An optimist might call it a test; if this survives the court battles that are likely to come, the FCC can perhaps spend another decade to get regulations for the services people actually use. (Maybe the FTC will do the same, and by 2075 we’ll be able to go into a restaurant and pay nothing more than what’s written on the menu.)
Re: Getting close
Add this.
Who gets to enforce any of this? As they dont have anyone wondering around doing it.
Think they can Let the state Enforce it? NOPE.
They will Find and make OTHER ways to add prices and fee’s.
Re: They did not outlaw the fees
Cable accompanies can still very much have these fees. They just have to disclose them upfront
“Mike Masnick is promoting the grooming of children and censorship by private companies!” is what the regular ignoramuses will scream in response to this article, completely overlooking what it’s about and that it wasn’t even written by Mike.
As if the world needed more reasons to pirate media.. rofl.
We’ll need to see how this plays out. The ‘fees’ were invented to honor “full disclosure” requirements. They couldn’t have an all in price, they had to disclose what composed that price. So, every business under the sun broke out those ‘separate’ items as line items ‘added’ to quoted price. And then, felt obligated to keep raising those non-price fees to give themselves raises without raising the price. Now, if they include all that in the quoted price, will they still be separate line items in the price that can still be raised but not be raising the price. OR, how will they become more creative in the way that they raise the cost to the customer without raising the advertised price?
Let’s face it, the “contract” that customers must agree to when getting almost any service nowadays says that the customer must pay whatever they are told, period, but the service provider can change anything, often including the price, or remove any currently provided service, ‘because’.
For example, XBox removed capabilities from it’s gave consoles, HP printers won’t operate unless it has Official, HP sanctioned ink cartridges ONLY, or the most popular one is that cable providers get into an argument with channels, so it just disappears. No price reduction because a formerly included channel just disappears, customers have to just suck it up because it’s allowed by the ‘contract’.
And, the customer often can’t even cancel the contract, but the provider can change anything it wants. What a sucky version of a one way binding to the customer only contract.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
You understand they don't actually have the legal ability to do this?
That’s what Congress is for. Writing laws. No, the administrative branch can’t write laws. Law making ability can’t be outsourced either.
But no, of course you don’t understand that.
Re:
Irrelevant clown seeks affirmation by meaningless flapping and yapping.
yawn
Re:
Stop pretending that you understand these things, Matty.
Re:
Has your break from revenge porn started already?
Re:
Ya know, except for congress delegating that power.
But hey I guess you want to remove all oversight over your pedophile friends.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re:
They literally are not allowed to do that, per the constitution.
Re: Re: Re:
What the Constitution says really just depends on the politics of our clerics.
Re: Re: Re:2
People who cite witch-hunters in legal rulings do not deserve respect.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:2
Sounds like you’re an insurrectionist.
Re: Re: Re:3
Get measured for your clitty cage, Matty.
Re: Re: Re:
And if the FCC was actually trying to implement a law here, you’d be right for once in your life.
But as per usual, you barely get past the headline before feeling the need to shine a spotlight on your ignorance.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:2
They are.
Re: Re: Re:3
No. Just because the headline says “outlaw” doesn’t mean a law is actually involved, Matty.
The FCC is implementing rules to regulate the cable industry, which is, you know, their intended purpose as the Federal Communications Commission.
Let’s get it straight from the horse’s mouth:
“New rules”. Not new laws or a new bill. Rules.
And before you get started, no, rules and laws are not synonymous.
Re:
…hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
Re: Re:
WPATH Files
It’s strange to use the word “your” for something that, by this point, most BestNetTech readers probably don’t have. Also, this only helps people who sign up for new cable TV subscriptions, which has gotta be somewhat rare by now. Existing subscribers already know how much it costs, and while their bills will be re-arranged they’re not going to be reduced.
It’s good that the FCC is banning (not “outlawing”) this practice. But 20 years into the service’s obsolescence is a bit too late; they might as well be regulating dial-up internet services. They should really be doing more to encourage competition in local internet access, which does still matter.
Re:
Due to cord cutting or the international readership?
Man, remember when the word “competitive” used to mean something? For an industry that claims to be competitive they sure as heck make a big fuss whenever they’re asked to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Re:
They’re competing in the same sense as people playing Monopoly are competing: a handful of players buying territory from each other, and taking over from those they’ve bankrupted. And everyone ends up angry in the end.
Re:
“Competitive” these days gets explained away as “market rate”, but what “market rate” even is has also become pretty bastardized. It gets marketed as “we are willing to maybe pay you slightly more because we value your talent and we intend to restrict you from being accessed by our business rivals”.
At least that’s what we’re told. These days for a company to be “competitive”, it means cutting what excess and redundancy they can. Offshoring, delegating, or just paying people less than they’re worth and promising them that all this belt-tightening will pay off in the end. Well, it pays off, just not for the intern trying pay off their student loan. And nobody really wants to walk away from it because the alternative is eviction and starving.
"highly competitive"?
Quick, pick a location, then name 2 other cable companies that serve the same location…
The Party of Small* Government (*some restrictions apply)
It’s great to see, but the fact it took the agency thirty years to accomplish this kind of speaks for itself. Republican FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington voted against the proposal, which is par for the course given the tight alliance between shitty telecom and cable companies and the GOP.
From the political party that brought you ‘Social media deserves to be highly regulated and prevented from exercising their actual first amendment rights in order to protect the fictional rights of their users’ comes ‘Requiring ISP’s to accurately list the price of their service is government tyranny!’
Can we please
End the forced down The throat broadcast mandate?
If you want to lower fees stop forcing broadcast transmission that la literal 50% of users do not want or use.
When cable providers don’t need to prop up the four failed broadcast groups, consumers won’t be paying for a service they don’t use