Comcast to pass along fee increase

Comcast Corp. officials said a recently approved Spokane cable fee increase will be passed along to roughly 56,000 subscribers in March.

The increase, approved 6-to-1 in a Spokane City Council session Monday, means cable rates for city residents will go up 5 percent. They are already due to jump between 6 percent and 18 percent in January in a previously announced company increase.

The extra increase, amounting to an added 5 percent tax on Comcast’s subscriber cable-TV bill, applies only to the company’s subscribers in the city of Spokane. It will not apply to county residents or those in Spokane Valley, Comcast spokesman Walter Neary said. The Spokane decision has no impact on Comcast’s broadband customers, Neary said.

Up to now, Comcast city TV subscribers saw a 6 percent fee added to their cable bills. In March, that rate goes to 11 percent. That money is paid to the city as a franchise fee.

City Council members approved the rate increase to generate between $750,000 and $1.3 million in new revenue by the end of 2005, said the city’s public affairs officer, Marlene Feist. The money will go toward funding five police and four fire positions that were in danger of being cut because of city budget pressures.

Neary said it’s too soon to tell if the added tax will cost Comcast any subscribers to its chief competitors, the two major national direct satellite program providers. Comcast does feel some concern over the rate jump, “since this is an impact for now only on us and not on our competitors,” Neary said.

Spokane Comcast general manager Kenneth Watts told council members during this week’s session that one possible scenario would be a net loss in the amount of franchise fee revenue the cable company pays to the city, if a significant number of consumers dropped their subscriptions.

Cable subscribers will see the increase listed as a separate line item, described as a municipal franchise fee, Watts said. Cable subscribers in the city and county will also see a 31-cent monthly fee for public, education and government channel costs.

If all new rate increases and fees are added together, here’s how most cable plans in the city of Spokane will look.

For limited basic subscribers (30 channels), the 2004 monthly bill of $13.73 will rise to $16.25 on Jan. 1. The March rate, reflecting the added tax, goes to $17.13. That will be a net increase in this group of almost 25 percent since 2004.

For extended basic subscribers (65 channels), the current monthly cable bill of $43.77 will go to $46.57 on Jan. 1. The March increase takes the monthly total to $49.11, a net increase of 12 percent from one year ago.

For digital subscribers who signed up in 2003 for the gold package with more than 160 channels, the current monthly bill of $87.90 will increase to $94.55 in January. The March increase will raise the bill to a total $98.68, a 12 percent increase in the past year.