Well it's that time of year when both cable and satellite TV companies are raising rates. Comcast got the ball up in November 2008, with the announcement that they would be increased costs to their customers. Dish Network followed up with their own announcement that came into force in early February 2009, also raise prices for customers.
DirecTV is the latest major player to announce a rate hike. Direct TV price increase will take effect in early March, and will raise prices on most packages between $ 3 and $ 5 dollars each. DirecTV is citing higher programming costs as a justification for price increases. DIRECTV prices have been raised over the past three years.
Overall, the increase will not be breaking any budgets. Looking at it logically, they are basically raising the price for the service of a penny a day, worth it for most viewers who see between one and four hours of television each day. But it seems as if consumers get nickel and dimed to death, even with the economy goes into the tank.
On the other hand, compare DIRECTV vs. Dish Network and will give you a good idea of what satellite TV will offer. One example is the price of DVR service each month. The DirecTV DVR is about a month, while Comcast charges upwards of their DVR service. Charges like this can really inflate your bill.
Direct TV had a stellar second quarter to finish off 2008. They added over 300,000 customers in the most recent reporting quarter, while Comcast lost half a million. That in itself shows that Direct TV feel comfortable to raise rates even if the economy continues to slow to a crawl. Dish Network Satellite TV will certainly find it difficult to keep up with live TV in 2009 when they lost a key negotiator, with AT & T switching and direct-TV in years.
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