Cable rates to increase in April
URBANA – Comcast Cable customers in East Central Illinois can expect to pay 6 percent more for expanded basic cable, beginning April 2, the company said today.
The rate for the 69-channel expanded basic package will rise from $49.75 a month to $52.75 a month, according to Melody Brucker, director of Comcast’s Champaign-Urbana District.
The rate for the 21-channel basic package will increase from $11.50 to $12.50 – an increase of 8.7 percent.
The last time local customers absorbed an increase in cable rates was Jan. 1, 2007, when the expanded basic rate rose from $47 a month to $49.75 a month. There was no increase in basic cable at that time.
Customers can also expect to see increases of $1 or so for some premium movie channels and packages, Brucker added.
“It’s just the cost of doing business,” she said. “A lot of programming costs go up. Fuel goes up. We employ 130 people within this area. We have costs go up on us too, and a lot of those costs we absorb internally. Meanwhile, the programming gets better and better, and the integrity of the network is getting better.”
The average Comcast customer will see an overall increase of about 3.5 percent, Brucker said. That’s because many Comcast customers subscribe to additional services, and rates aren’t going up on high-speed Internet and phone service.
Customers who took advantage of special promotional rates for bundled cable, phone and Internet service won’t face increases until the promotional period ends, she added.
Brucker said the channel lineups for basic and expanded basic customers won’t change soon – and there’s still no word on whether Comcast will carry the Big Ten Network.
“Within the next couple months, we’ll roll out modest changes to the package, but there’s a lot coming down the pipeline,” she said. “We’ll add a lot more HD (high-definition) channels. … There will be some changes in digital packaging, and we’ll be adding a lot more channels to those packages.”
Rick Atterberry, chairman of the Champaign-Urbana Joint Cable and Telecommunications Commission, said the commission received word of the rate increases by registered letter Saturday. The cities of Champaign and Urbana have regulatory authority only over basic rates, not expanded basic rates.
Atterberry said the commission doesn’t have to affirm the increase in basic cable rates, but probably won’t stand in the way unless problems are found. He said basic cable increases are supposed to be pegged to both the cost of living and the cost of providing service.
The commission is scheduled to meet in study session April 9 and in regular session April 16. A special meeting on Comcast’s increases probably won’t be called unless city legal departments see a problem with them, he said.
Comcast acquired the local cable system from Insight Communications last year. Atterberry said commission members have been concerned that Comcast – and Insight before it – haven’t advertised the 21-channel basic package as much as it should have.
In East Central Illinois, Comcast serves several communities in Champaign, Vermilion and Douglas counties. They include Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, Bondville, Homer, Ogden, Philo, Sidney, St. Joseph, Danville, Oakwood, Fairmount, Fithian, Muncie, Olivet, Indianola, Chrisman and Ridge Farm.
Comcast also serves the Indiana communities of Cayuga, Eugene, Lodi, Silverwood and Kingman. Altogether, Comcast has about 54,000 customers in the district.
The company also serves Newman and Broadlands in Illinois, but those communities are served by a separate “head-end” and have different rates from other Comcast communities. They won’t be affected by the increases described in this story.