Fox was asking for what has been described as a 20% rate hike on programming. Fox was seeking a big rate increase to recognize that they have the number one network on cable TV with 1.5 million daily viewers. NCTC finally struck a deal with Fox on December 31 and the channels didn’t go dark – but the cost of buying the Fox networks went up substantially. Back in September, the Fox channels went dark for ten days on Dish Networks when the satellite company refused to accept the same big rate increase.
This is not the first big rate increase from Fox. ALLO Communications, a sizable fiber overbuilder, says that Fox has raised rates 800% since 2004, To put that into perspective, the cost of living in the US has increased by 36% since 2004.
The Fox rate increase is the perfect metaphor for the woes of the cable industry. Fox is not unique, and during the 2000s most cable programmers raised rates much faster than inflation. Cable companies have had little choice but to pass the rate increases along to customers. The programming cost increases have led to a steady annual rate increase for consumers. The soaring price of cable has led to the cord cutting trend and customers are bailing from traditional cable TV by the millions and at an increasing pace.
As a whole, traditional cable TV has probably now entered what economists call a death spiral. Most programming contracts are for 3 – 5 years and the cable TV companies already know of the big programming cost increases coming for the next few years. As cable companies keep raising rates they will lose more customers. The programmers will likely try to compensate by raising their rates even higher, and within a short number of years, cable TV will cost more than what most homes are willing to pay.
A company like Fox can weather the storm of disappearing cable subscribers since they know that all of the online alternative networks like Sling TV, YouTube TV, and others will carry their major networks like Fox News, Fox Business, and the sports networks. The chances are that the primary Fox channels will be solid and steady earners for the company far into the future. However, the same can’t be said for many cable networks.
The online cable products have far smaller channel lineups than traditional cable. There are more than 100 traditional cable channels that are losing subscribers from cable companies and not replacing them with online programming. It’s only a matter of time until many of these networks go dark, as programming revenues won’t cover the cost of operating the network.
It’s easy for people to hate cable companies since that’s who people pay every month. Cable providers like Comcast and AT&T share in the blame since they are both the two largest cable providers and also owners of content. All cable companies share some blame for not yelling bloody murder to the American public for the last decade – and for not fighting back. The cable companies instead started sliding the programming rate increases into hidden fees. However, the fault ultimately lies with the greed of the programmers. These are mostly big publicly traded companies raise rates every year to please stockholders.
It’s no longer good enough for corporations to make money, they are expected to increase bottom line quarter after quarter, year after year. We’ve only been talking about cord cutting for a few years, but the industry has been declining for over a decade. In 2010 there were nearly 105 million subscribers of traditional cable TV, and that number dropped to just over 83 million by the third quarter of 2019. It’s easy to think of cord cutting as a recent phenomenon, but the industry has been quietly bleeding customers for years. Sadly, the programmers are still denying the reality that they exist in a dying industry and are likely to continue to raise rates like Fox just did.
The supply and demand side of any sane industry would have gotten together years ago and figured out a way for the industry to be sustainable. However, the combined greed of the programmers and the big cable companies has resulted in the runaway rate increases that will doom traditional cable. It’s hard to know where the tipping point will be, but we’ll be there when cable networks start going dark – it’s just a matter of time.