WEBVTT

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Is there anything worse than dealing with a cable company? Bad service, expensive bills,

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and tons of channels that you don't want have left many people looking for ways to just cut

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the cord and rely on streaming exclusively. So why is cable TV so expensive for what you get?

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Well, one big thing to keep in mind is that although it seems like your local cable company is an

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evil, money-grabbing organization, they also are getting a little screwed with their own costs.

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You see, as opposed to streaming services like Netflix, which get to pick and choose specific

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shows and movies to buy, cable companies have to buy the rights to carry entire channels from

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content providers. And not only that, they also usually have to purchase channels in bundles.

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So let's say that cable company wants to buy an extremely popular channel like ESPN. That's

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owned by Disney. Disney will come back and say, sure, we'll sell you the rights to carry ESPN,

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but you also have to buy ESPN Classic and a bunch of other channels that nobody cares about,

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like Nat Geo Wild. No offense, animal lovers. Not only is this why cable TV comes with so many

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channels you never watch, but it also results in higher cable bills, since your provider has to

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end up passing the cost of those unwanted channels down to you. Yeah, you're actually paying for

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them. And the content providers can get away with this because of how valuable some of their

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flagship properties are. For example, Fox Sports paid $3 billion to the NFL for a five-year deal

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just to broadcast one game a week. But you gotta see that game. Cable companies aren't any happier

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about these high costs than you are. So they've actually tried to change the system to force

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content providers to unbundle popular channels. Cablevision, which serves much of the New York

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City area, actually sued Viacom several years ago for exactly this reason. And although cable

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companies have lobbied the FCC to require Alucard sales of popular channels, they haven't been

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successful. And to make matters even worse, some of the contracts between content providers and

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cable companies also require that the most popular channels have to be offered in multiple

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service tiers, which further limits a customer's ability to get out of paying for channels that

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they don't care about. And because cable TV infrastructure is so extensive and therefore

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expensive to maintain, plus the fact that refusing to carry a popular channel could

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cause a mass exodus of customers, the cable companies have to deal with both trying to

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satisfy a huge customer base while also recouping the huge investment it takes to keep themselves

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running. Of course, I'm not trying to paint the cable companies as completely innocent victims.

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They're still responsible for consistently poor customer service and also finding ways to

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unnecessarily squeeze money out of us, such as with data caps for bundled internet services

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and monthly fees for cable boxes, despite the technology existing to eliminate them,

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which you can learn much more about up here. So are there any alternatives if you want to

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watch your favorite channels without paying through the nose? Well, services like YouTube TV

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and Hulu Plus Live TV offer a smaller lineup of the most popular channels for a cheaper rate,

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typically between $45 and $50 a month. And Hulu also includes its streaming library

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in that cost. Not a bad deal. Of course, you then have to deal with the issues inherent to

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over-the-top streaming, like competing with other internet traffic. That can be particularly

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problematic if you're engrossed in a live event like a ballgame or an awards show. And you can

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learn more about how that all works right there. So while you might be giving up something regardless

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of which option you go with, I promise you that here at Techquickie, we will never try to price

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gouge you guys. But do please buy our merch. So thanks for watching, guys. Give this video a

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like if you liked it, subscribe to the channel, and be sure to hit us up in the comments with

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suggestions for what you want to see in future videos.