By Jenny Burns, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Dec. 2--Time Warner will be raising rates on this month's cable bill, although the increase is slightly less than those of the past three years.
Expanded basic service in the Myrtle Beach area will cost 4.7 percent more than it did in Novem ber. Last year's increase was 5.5 percent. For example, expanded basic cable service from Time Warner will go from $36.25 to $37.95 a month.
Adelphia Communications, which serves Browns Ferry, Sampit and DeBordieu, also is raising rates.
Other cable companies on the Grand Strand do not have rate increases planned, but some say they may come later in 2005.
Time Warner says its rate increases are necessary because of rising programming costs, especially from sports networks.
'We pay ESPN for every customer that we have,' said Mary Anne Jacobs, director of public affairs for the S.C. division of Time Warner Cable. 'ESPN is one of the most expensive programs and the most viewed. It trickles down to the consumer.'
The National Cable & Tele communications Association listed the average monthly price for expanded basic cable as $36.59 in December 2003, the most recent average avail able.
Cable companies are no longer regulated on the federal level but can be subject to some regulation by local county and city councils, said Ron Wilder, a University of South Carolina economist.
Wilder said it's hard to know if rising cable rates are really related to cost increases or just the ability of the company to raise prices.
But cable companies, which now face increasing compe tition from satellite TV oper ators, are no longer the quasi monopolies they once were.
Time Warner's broadcast tier will increase from $8.47 per month to $9.32 per month, and the tier will increase from $27.78 to $28.63.
Those two services together add up to expanded basic cable.
Customers in Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Briarcliffe, Atlantic Beach, Surfside Beach, Georgetown and others will now be charged $37.95 a month for basic cable, up from $36.25.
Time Warner Cable has about 107,000 customers along the Grand Strand, serving the coastal area from Little River to Georgetown and inland to Andrews, Kingstree and west of Conway.
Adelphia Communications will raise rates in Browns Ferry and Sampit from $34.53 to $36.25 a month. The company also added two channels, spokesman Paul Jacobson said.
Customers in DeBordieu get about 30 channels and will see rates increase from $18.87 to $19.80.
Jacobson said the increases also are due to increased programming costs.
Atlantic Telephone, which provides cable services for most of Brunswick County, N.C., has no plans to raise rates now or in 2005, said Pat Olsen, vice president of marketing and customer service.
The company raised rates in early 2003 by $3 on basic cable but did not raise rates in 2004.
Atlantic's customers pay $35.95 a month for expanded basic cable.
Horry Telephone Cooperative, which serves customers in western Horry County, does not have a rate increase plan ned, but the company may raise rates in 2005 if programming costs continue to increase, said Cricket Alcorn, HTC communications supervisor.
HTC's basic cable costs $33.45, Alcorn said.
Time Warner's 2005 cable price is now more than the December 2003 national aver age.
Some new services will be added this month to Time Warner cable. Discovery Health will now be on the basic tier channel 69 instead of the digital tier. Style also will move to the basic tier channel 68 from the digital tier. And MTV Hits will be added to digital tier channel 134.
CNNfn will be going off the air because the network is not producing it anymore, Jacobs said.
To see more of The Sun News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.MyrtleBeachOnline.com
(c) 2004, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.
TWX, DIS,
