As we recently showed in our line-by-line breakdowns of cable and satellite bills, Comcast and other pay-TV providers are using a variety of fees to effectively raise customers’ rates without actually increasing the advertised price. Now comes news that New Jersey utility regulators are looking into Comcast’s use of one particular fee on the company’s most basic tier of TV service. [More]
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Cable’s Top Lobbyist Is Sick And Tired Of All This “Troublesome,” “Distressing” Regulation And Competition
By 5.17.16
Our old friend Michael “Regulation Is Bad” Powell, former FCC chairman and now top pro-cable lobbyist, is at it again. [More]
The 3 Big Things We’ve Learned About Your Cable Bill
By 5.17.16
Over the last few months, we’ve reviewed cable and internet service bills for seven of the nation’s largest providers in an attempt to make sense of all those fees and charges. So what did we learn from these bills covering cable, satellite, and fiber customers from Connecticut to California? [More]
Comcast Charges Family For Porn Rentals Made After They Canceled Service
By 5.6.16
You know those hacky crime novels and movies where a suspect is locked up because everyone is convinced he’s the killer — only to later be vindicated when the murders continue while the suspect is behind bars? This story is like that, but with porn instead of dead bodies. [More]
Comcast “Cares” On Twitter. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
By 5.2.16
If there is one lesson that large corporations really, really need to take to heart about the 21st century, it is this: unless you are universally beloved (and maybe even then), probably don’t self-promote with Twitter hashtags. It will not end well for you. And who would be the latest business to fall for this trap? It’s Comcast, the cable company America loves to hate. [More]
Hulu’s Live-TV Streaming Service Would Compete With Co-Owner Comcast
By 5.2.16
The Hulu streaming video service is co-owned by Disney (ABC), Fox, and Comcast (NBC), and — not surprisingly — it has a record of playing nice with its broadcast TV overlords. But a possible pivot into the live-TV streaming market would put Hulu in competition with Comcast. [More]
Does Cord-Cutting Always Automatically Save You Money?
By 4.29.16
For the past several months we’ve been working our way through real customers’ pay TV bills one by one, and one piece of reader feedback keeps bubbling up again and again: Why pay for TV at all? This is the age of the cord-cutter, right? Just ditch cable already! [More]
Comcast Raising Data Caps To One Terabyte On June 1
By 4.27.16
Comcast has — deservedly so — been the subject of thousands of customer complaints since expanding its test of data caps in 2015. In an effort to establish a more realistic data cap, Comcast is more than tripling the monthly data threshold in these markets from 300 GB to a full terabyte. [More]
Comcast Reportedly Looking To Buy DreamWorks Animation For $3B
By 4.26.16
Comcast already owns a mammoth cable/broadband company, a major TV and cable TV network, amusement parks, and a movie/TV/video production and distribution company responsible for money machines like Jurassic World and the Despicable Me/Minions movies. But that’s not enough, apparently. The boys and girls from Kabletown are also looking to add DreamWorks Animation to their shelf. [More]
From “Yay” To “Boo” To “Shrug,” Here’s What Everyone Had To Say About FCC’s Set-Top Box Proposal
By 4.26.16
When the FCC voted in February to consider new rules for your cable box, that kicked off a multi-month cycle of public comments, where anyone and everyone can have their say. The deadline for the first round struck at midnight Friday, which means most of the comments are just rolling onto the internet for all and sundry to have a look at. [More]
Sling TV: Data Caps Are Cable Industry Tool To “Sabotage” Streaming Video
By 4.22.16
Since Comcast began expanding its years-long “test” of data caps and overage fees, complaints to the FCC about these new limits have skyrocketed. And some streaming video companies say that data caps are causing customers to either limit their use or drop these services rather than risk paying a penalty for going over their monthly allotment. [More]
3 Reasons Comcast’s Samsung App Is Not The Answer To Set-Top Box Reform
By 4.21.16
Yesterday, only weeks after the FCC voted to draft rules that would require pay-TV companies to open up the set-top box market to competitors, Comcast announced a deal with Samsung that will allow owners of certain TVs to access their cable TV without the need to pay for a cable box every month. The industry and its supporters are heralding the news as a clear demonstration that the FCC should just shut up and stop all its regulating, but the reports of the set-top box’s death are greatly exaggerated. [More]
Comcast Tells Florida Customers They’ll Be Losing Channels; Won’t Say Which Ones
By 4.8.16
Comcast giveth (by accident) and Comcast taketh away (via form letter with no pertinent information). The cable giant is telling some Florida customers that they will soon be losing channels they weren’t supposed to get, but isn’t telling them which ones. [More]
Groupon Still Exists, Gets $250M Investment From Comcast
By 4.4.16
Last fall, things didn’t look good for Groupon — the deal site that three of your friends wouldn’t shut up about in 2011. Its stock price had sunk to a new low as it fired more than 1,000 employees and closed operations in six countries and Puerto Rico. But the company got some good news today in the form of a $250 million investment/partnership with Comcast. [More]
Comcast Says FCC Privacy Rules Will Hurt Consumers By Not Allowing Them To See More Comcast Ads
By 4.1.16
The number-one complaint we get from Consumerist readers is “You guys just don’t have enough ads on your site! Where are all the pop-ups, roll-overs, pop-overs, auto-play videos, and page-crashing ad units that make surfing the web so dang enjoyable?” We hear you, we do; we just don’t have the staff to sell all those ads you want bogging down your browser and tracking you across pages and platforms. And even if we did, those pesky jerks at the FCC are trying to rob us — and consumers — of more options to be marketed to, and commodified by, our Internet service providers. [More]
Should Cable, Internet Companies Be Required To Let You Cancel Service Online?
By 3.30.16
Just about any pay-TV or Internet service provider (often one in the same) lets new customers sign up online. You can do the whole process — check your address for availability (even if the company’s database is dreadfully wrong), pick a service tier, schedule an installation appointment, and even have your credit history checked — all without talking to a single human being. But if you need to cancel that same service, you likely have to spend quite a long time talking to someone on the phone, explaining that you simply don’t want to give their company any more money. [More]
AT&T Copies Comcast, Lets U-Verse Customers Pay $30 To Avoid Data Caps
By 3.30.16
We don’t know why anyone would want to be like Comcast, but AT&T sure seems to be doing its best to dress itself up just like the chaps from Kabletown. They both hate community broadband and will lobby to shut it down when it competes with their services, and they both only offer competitive pricing when Google Fiber is in the mix. Now AT&T is following Comcast’s lead on data caps, by generously offering to let customers pay more to avoid running into those monthly limits. [More]
