A 124

A 124% Cable Rate Increase
Jonathan L. Kramer
Kramer.Firm, Inc.
www.CableTV.com
February 20, 2003

I subscribe to Adelphia's cable at my office here in the City of Los Angeles (I pay the full retail commercial rates, of course).

I received a letter dated February 12, 2003 from Jim Innis at Adelphia notifying me that, in part, says, "Recently, Fox Sports World and ESPN Classics Networks reviewed their agreement with all cable companies throughout the country and found that Adelphia, as with all cable companies, were charging residential rates for their networks instead of the standard, commercial rate. These sports networks have mandated that Adelphia adhere to their standard commercial rates. These rates reflect a substantial increase over the residential rates you are currently paying. " (Emphasis in the original.)

"Adelphia has drastically changed the way we package our sports cable networks for commercial business only. Businesses will now be able to subscribe to any sports networks ala la cart (sic)." (Emphasis in the original.)

Adelphia offers two options:

(1) Do nothing, and the new rate for the same package of channels, including the sports channels, will increase by $9.95 for ESPN News, plus $38.95 for Fox Sport World, plus $9.95 for ESPN Classic (an increase of $58.85 on a present extended basic bill of $47.50). (I'm not including the $6.50 for the required digital converter since it's required anyway for the tiers I subscribe to at my office.)

(2) Call Adelphia to cancel the three networks, ". . .before February 28th, 2003, or you will be billed for the network(s)." (Emphasis in the original.)

If my math is right, under option 1, that's an increase of just about 124%, excluding the required digital converter charge, which, as I said above, I need anyway.

Also of interest is the fact that when I spoke with Jim Innis earlier today, he said that Adelphia had not yet figured out how to actually remove just those channels from the overall service yet, but that he would stop the billing so I won't get dinged for the substantially higher rate (hummm, I wonder how that'll go over with the networks, and the franchisors...). And, for those of you who also caught that the notice gave less than 30 days to opt-out, I asked Jim about it. His reply was that the City of Los Angeles has no franchise provisions preventing Adelphia from instituting a rate increase for commercial accounts on less than 30 days notice...that only residential subscribers are protected with a 30 day notice requirement.

It likely won't come as any surprise to you that I called Jim and said, 'thanks, but no thanks' to a 124% rate increase. Hey, come to think of it, since my commercial expanded basic rate isn't going down, yet they're eliminating the sports channels in question, they're still getting a rate increase one way or another!

Below, you'll find the two page letter announcing the rate increase.