Cable Rates To Increase As Much as 6%

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Grant peter.grant@wsj.com and Dionne Searcey dionne.searcey@wsj.com]
Most cable-TV bills will continue to climb next year, with Comcast, the country's largest cable operator, leading the way with a 6% increase for its most popular service. Cable and satellite rates also are rising at a time of renewed calls in Washington for legislation that would require operators to sell channels individually instead of packaged together. Advocates of so-called a la carte pricing argue that it is unfair to consumers to make them pay steep price increases for channels they don't watch. Consumer groups argue that imposing a la carte pricing on cable and satellite companies would be one of the best ways to control prices. "If you were to allow consumers to have real choice" of paying only for programs they watch, says Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, "that would have a tremendous discipline on everybody."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113339662180710783.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
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