Hargray: Cable bill increase is because of "Broadcast TV" fee

The company's roughly 40,000 Beaufort County customers now pay an extra $2.86 a month as a "broadcast TV surcharge." The company said the fee will defray the increased costs that broadcasters charge Hargray to retransmit over-the-air signals.

Vice president of sales and marketing Gerrit Albert said the company will not profit from the charge.

"It's an absolute pass-through," he said Friday. "It has nothing to do with our service. This is just passing along what the broadcasters impose on us."

Albert said broadcasters such as WSAV and WTOC used to charge nothing for the right to transmit over-the-air signals. However, since 2012, federal law has allowed those stations to charge retransmission fees. With this month's increase, customers pay $6.25 a month for the charge.

Albert said he was prohibited from saying which networks increased fees.

"Local affiliates we negotiate with decided the terms," Albert said. "These are costs we do not control."

Hargray isn't the only company to impose such fees, which are common in the cable industry.

Time Warner Cable added $.50 this month to its broadcast fee, bringing it to $2.75 a month, according to spokesman Scott Pryzwansky. The media giant has about 500,000 customers in S.C.

The fees might frustrate some customers because programming from local broadcast stations is free with an indoor or outdoor antenna. However, Hargray and Time Warner subscribers cannot drop broadcast channels to avoid the fee.

Other customers will complain this is yet another hike in what seems to be the ever-increasing price of cable. They might be right.

A 2014 FCC study found that cable prices have been rising at triple the rate of inflation. Between 1995 and 2013, the average annual rate for expanded basic cable services grew 6.1 percent, while the average annual growth rate for the general rate of inflation over that same period was 2.4 percent, the study found.

Albert, the Hargray vice president, declined to say if more price increases are on the way.

"Each spring we take a look at our rates and our service and make adjustments when necessary," he said Friday.

He said the company is urging customers to write to lawmakers and the FCC, in hopes of changing the law that allows broadcast TV fees. Until then, television stations will continue to have the upper hand in negotiations, and cable customers will continue seeing the resulting higher charges on their bills.

"If we're successful at getting (the law) removed, we'll remove the fee from the bill," he said. "We're hoping one day that might occur."

Follow reporter Dan Burley on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Dan.

Related content:

• Hargray requires basic-cable subscribers to go digital, Aug. 19, 2014

This story was originally published January 23, 2015 at 5:13 PM with the headline "Hargray: Cable bill increase is because of "Broadcast TV" fee."