Comcast Subscribers Are Paying Up To $1.9 Billion a Year for Over-the-Air Channels They Can Get Free.
We calculated that Comcast is raking in as much as $1.9 billion a year from its broadcast TV fees.
As of January 1, 2017, Comcast raised its “Broadcast TV Fee” from $5 a month to $7 a month.
And as you can see below, local broadcast channels are included in every TV package Comcast offers.
22,508,000 subscribers paying $7 a month for broadcast channels comes out to around $157.6 million in monthly revenue for Comcast.
Of course, there is an assumption with the $1.9 billion figure, and that is that all Comcast subscribers would be able to pick up those channels free if they had an antenna.
With that in mind, if you assume that 80% of Comcast subscribers could get their local broadcast channels free with an antenna, that’s still $1.5 billion each year that the cable company is getting by charging subscribers for channels they can get for free. »