#BROADCAST SURCHARGE TV#
To the plaintiff, the language on the TWC bill is falsely implying that the Broadcast TV Surcharge is somehow related to a mandatory governmental expense. In the end, TWC reached a deal with CBS not because it was required to, but because it was bleeding customers who have long expected that the major networks will be available from their cable company. Just look at what happened three years ago, when a standoff between CBS and TWC ended up in a month-long CBS blackout for millions of TWC subscribers. As the FCC explains on its site, it doesn’t really have the authority to get involved in these negotiations.
So if Cable Company X can’t come to a retransmission agreement with TV Station A, the station could be blacked out for Company X subscribers. The Communications Act does require cable companies to set aside a certain number of channels for carrying local broadcast stations, but a cable provider is not required to pay whatever price a station demands for retransmission.
“TWC imposes surcharges to recover costs of complying with its governmental obligations,” reads an explanation at the end of that section. In addition to the claim of deceptive marketing, the plaintiff alleges that Charter/TWC is breaking state law by implying to customers that this surcharge is required.Īs we noted in our coverage of the TWC bill, the company lists the Broadcast TV fee in the same section as other very official-sounding “recovery” fees, like the “Regulatory Recovery Fee,” “PEG Capital Fee,” “PUC Recovery Fee,” “Universal Service Fund” fees for both state and federal, “The reality is that Charter invented these Surcharges in order to deceive its customers by advertising and promising a lower price while actually charging a higher price,” reads the lawsuit, which alleges that the failure to disclose these fees in the advertised rate is a violation of California’s law against false advertising. The money that Charter pays to the networks “is a basic cost of doing business,” argues the plaintiff, who says that if Charter is going to pass this cost on to customers, it should be including that amount in the rates it markets. The lawsuit contends that this surcharge should be included in the advertised rate, as carrying TV stations is the very thing that customers pay cable companies for. The amount of this surcharge - $8.75/month for some customers, according to the complaint - is not included in the monthly rate that the now-combined companies advertise to the public. TWC expanded this surcharge in 2015 by adding “Sports Programming”.
Charter has been adding this surcharge for six years, while Time Warner Cable has been using this add-on charge since 2014. This surcharge is a way for the cable companies to recoup the money they pay to the broadcast networks - NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX - to carry their channels. The lawsuit, filed this week in a California state court in San Diego, accuses Charter and TWC of “engaging in a massive illegal scheme of falsely advertising and promising its cable television service plans for much lower prices than it actually charges.” What Is The Broadcast TV Fee?Īs we mentioned earlier this year in our line-by-line breakdowns of bills from Time Warner Cable and Charter customers, both of these companies have charged some sort of “Broadcast TV” fee.
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