The FCC’s annual Report on Cable Industry Prices...
The FCC’s annual Report on Cable Industry Prices issued last week is “misleading, outdated and irrelevant as a measure of the health of the TV marketplace,” said an NCTA blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1oT0CFz). Instead of measuring only cable providers, the…
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report (CD May 19 p13) should also include other pay TV providers, NCTA said. “Today cable video barely comprises 53 percent of pay TV households,” said the blog post. The report also doesn’t account for cable packages that are ordered alongside other services such as broadband and digital telephone, NCTA said. Eighty percent of cable video customers buy other services with their cable, and generally receive a price drop, NCTA said. “This report only considers the standalone price of a single cable TV package that is rarely bought on its own,” said the post. The report should also have mentioned the cost to customers per viewing hour, which is 23 cents, NCTA said: “This is just about the lowest cost-per-hour form of entertainment available."