Cable TV prices set to jump in Wadsworth

WADSWORTH — Cable TV subscription rates through the city's in-house utility probably are going up due to rising costs for channels such as ESPN, city officials said. Basic service through Wadsworth-owned CityLink, which includes access to 28 TV channels, is slated to jump from $25 to $27 a month. Enhanced service featuring 82 channels including ESPN, Big Ten Network, CNN and Fox News would go from $78 to $84 a month and digital plus packages adding an additional 42 channels are set to rise from $97 to $104. City Council voted Tuesday to move legislation enacting the changes in a second of three readings. Talks specified that no rate increases for internet service are planned at this time. Proposed increases for cable TV would go into effect Jan. 1. Public Service Director Robert Patrick said that the price of some cable channels such as ESPN as well as local TV news affiliates have contributed to the decision to raise rates for Wadsworth subscribers. He added that the costs to the city for some local TV affiliates have jumped as much as 150 percent over the past couple of years. "We have multiyear contracts and we do the best we can to negotiate those," Patrick said during a committee meeting. "We've been pretty successful, but all the charges for the programming that we offer goes up every year. Our next contract increase is at the end of this year, so if we don't increase the rates there won't be much left there for operations." Additional charges for cable TV customers living outside city limits were done away with last year. "We fought with (local affiliates) and said, 'How are we supposed to pass on these 150 percent increases,'" Patrick said. "We knew we were going to have to think about doing something different." Committee members and Patrick referred to the increasing pattern of customers choosing to "cut the cord" and rely on internet streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime for TV viewing. According to a report published in January by longtime TV information gathering and ratings measuring firm Nielsen Holdings, 14 percent of U.S. homes, amounting to roughly 16 to 17 million former subscribers, now participate in the cord-cutting trend, which represents a 48 percent increase over an eight-year span. That report split cord cutters into two large groups and one subgroup that it referred to as a "rapidly growing minority." Group one consists of about 9.4 million homes that use an antenna for local TV programming and subscribe to one or more internet streaming service. These subscribers have a median age of 36, median income of $44,500, and are likely to be parents with young children. Group two is made up of 6.6 million homes that use antennas but do not subscribe to paid internet streaming, instead relying on free services such as YouTube and video from news and entertainment websites. This demographic has a median age of 55, median income of $21,000, and is less likely to have kids living at home. The small subgroup, measured for the first time in 2018, includes about 1.3 million homes that use antennas, subscribe to streaming services like Netflix, but also use internet-based live TV access through entities such as Sling TV, Hulu, Sony's Playstation Vue, and YouTube. Patrick said CityLink has about 3,000 cable TV subscribers. "We're seeing a lot of people cutting the cord," he said. "Folks are using the internet to cut down on cable costs. I think this is going to continue. There has been a slowdown in cable. Last month, we increased our cable subscribers by two. That doesn't typically happen. In the fall, it slows down because people get through the summer and they cancel their service when they're away for the winter." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330) 721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.