Is there a secret basic basic $15 cable rate?

[JoeH]

$10.54 plus about $4 in fees for Basic Service here from Comcast in W. Mass. That provides about 20 channels.

[deckeda]

Dennis S wrote:
[quote=M A V I C]
[quote=Dennis S]
I talked to the FCC and they got out of the cable business in 1996. They said the city oversaw the cable company and the company could charge what it wanted to. I'm sure a town of 500 is not going to have much competition.

I think that may be to your advantage. 500 people, that's pretty small. The mayor has to be the cousin of someone you know. Get the mayor, city council... to pass a resolution that sets a requirement that the cable company provide limited basic cable at $12/mo.
I was thinking that very thing. I bet the city is making more money this way, but I can let them know I'm on to their game and before long, the whole town will know that they're being taken for chumps. This woman is moving into a church-sponsored "village" of about 20 apartments and they're all having to pay $50-70 for cable or DISH out of their Social Security check. Plus, at that high price for cable, they don't even have high-speed internet available.
Sounds like you might have another avenue you can pursue by contacting the church. That might be a bigger voice within your community. But if the city won't act, perhaps the church can ask for a discount for its flock living in those apts.

Or … is this a central building, these apartments? Perhaps the church's sponsorship is "better spent" on a big roof antenna or freestanding tower —whatever it takes to reach the big city's stations— and distributed signal system to ditch cable altogether. Sometimes the best message you can give a provider is to shop elsewhere, even if it doesn't seem at first you can.

[AllGold]

Comcast basic here in mid-Michigan just went up to $19.17. It was $17.02 for quite a while and even less ($14-15?) before that.

[D. Lawson]

It's between $12.37 and $12.40 through Time Warner for the locals, WGN, C-SPAN, HLN, ION, 3 shopping channels, and at least 5 public access channels here. We initially subscribed because our standard antenna reception was terrible, but we kept it after the digital switch for TiVo purposes, since we still can't trust the OTA HD signals not to break up at least once during any given program.