Fees for local TV stations are some of the biggest expenses for cable TV and even cord cutting services. Increasingly, cable companies have been pushing back and Sling TV even decided to not offer locals. Over the last month, several high profile blackouts of local channels have happened as Meredeth was dropped on Dish and AT&T lost Nexstar along with CBS owned locals. This comes as AT&T says Nexstar was asking for a 100% increase in the fees AT&T was paying.
Now the cable company Armstrong posted a breakdown of how fees for local ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC have gone up over 600% since 2006.
Source: Armstrong
When you consider that all network TV fees are up less than 90% since 2008, you can see how local TV stations costs are growing far faster than all other cable networks.
Source; Armstrong
These fees are not exclusive to cable TV but also hit streaming services like PlayStation Vue, Hulu, DIRECTV NOW, YouTube TV, and more. Back in 2018 Sling TV’s President even warned that local TV stations could soon cost as much as $16 a month.
Now a growing number of companies have been looking for ways to push back on this growth. Sling TV decided against adding locals, instead focusing on antenna users. This has been one of the main reasons Sling TV has been able to keep their cost at $25 a month when other services are at $40 or $50 a month.
The question now is who will win? Will cable companies and streaming services finally be able to push back against local TV broadcasters or will we see 2019 become one more year of a massive jump in local TV fees?
After seeing a 600% jump in local TV fee,s does that change your thoughts on blackouts? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.
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