Broadcast TV fees burden monthly consumer bills in 2024

Six of the nine legacy multichannel distributors tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan raised their broadcast TV fees from the first quarter of 2023 to January 2024. The upward pull resulted in a 12.8% increase in the group’s weighted national average to about $21.48 worth of broadcast fees per monthly consumer bill. The slowed growth (versus 2023) comes during heavy subscriber losses and terse carriage deals, such as the new agreement between Walt Disney Co. and Charter Communications Inc. following a high-profile dispute.

The telco TV and DBS operators in our list, save Frontier Communications Parent Inc., charged broadcast TV fees considerably lower than cable peers Comcast Corp., Charter, Mediacom Communications Corp. and Cable One Inc. As of the third quarter of 2023, DISH Network Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., DIRECTV Entertainment Holdings LLC’s U-verse and Frontier’s combined subscribers were equivalent to only 36% of the listed cable companies’ customer base. The non-cable providers may be paying a portion of the retransmission fees so their subscribers would not feel the burden of retrans rate hikes on top of base package price increases.

Kagan estimates that the average retrans fee per subscriber charged to cable, telco and DBS operators in 2024 will grow 14% to $22.62. This puts the average monthly broadcast TV surcharge per bill slightly lower than the average retrans fee per subscriber per month in 2024.

Other notable things regarding the broadcast fees include:

• The highest broadcast TV fee observed was from Comcast’s Denver market, reaching $34.75 per subscriber per month. However, our list suggests Comcast receives an average of $27.65 in broadcast fees every month from each customer, putting it second to Mediacom’s average of $28.28.
• Cable One was the only cable operator in the list that retained its broadcast fee throughout 2023.
• DISH has not implemented any broadcast fee hikes since 2021, as it suffered a steep drop in its traditional video subscriber base. As of the third quarter of 2023, DISH’s subscriber numbers have declined 18% since the fourth quarter of 2021.

Multichannel Trends is a regular feature from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan. SP Global