Students living off campus now must pay more for their Cox Communications cable subscriptions. The rate increase funds the company’s ability to provide certain channels, such as ESPN. Contact Cox at www.cox.com. Students living on campus are not affected by the rate increase.
Students subscribing to Cox Communications cable will have to fork over a little more cash in this month’s cable bill. As of Nov. 1, Cox raised cable prices to compensate for rising programming costs.
The increase is not large, but any change can be painful for some students’ budgets.
The rate increase varies for different plans. For example, expanded basic cable rose by 7 percent, causing students to pay an additional $2.74 per month.
However, students living on campus are not affected by the increase, said Sharon Kleinpeter, Cox spokesperson.
Nearly half of Cox’s budget goes toward paying networks for the privilege to run programs. Networks have been increasing the fee in recent years, so Cox passed on part of the expense to subscribers, Kleinpeter said.
“We can’t pass all the increase to customers,” Kleinpeter said. “We [Cox] absorb most of the cost.”
One of the biggest culprits is ESPN, with a 20 percent price increase in the last year.
However, many students and Cox customers feel the channels that cost more also are worth more.
“ESPN is the main program [channel] I watch,” said Mark Schmidt, an industrial engineering senior. “I pay a lot of money for 70 to 80 channels, most of which are worthless.”
Many students, such as agriculture business junior Sam Mixon, would feel better about the increase if Cox had notified customers before raising the price.
“It seems like we pay a lot of money for it,” he said. “I didn’t even know the price was going up.”
Although most students are not happy with the increase, the current increase is not enough to keep them from purchasing cable.
On a national level Cox and its rivals are considering providing “stem” channels. Stemming would allow cable companies to offer patrons more customized packages, with expensive channels like ESPN for a separate price.
However, Cox cannot consider stemming now because of network contractual agreements.
Some students think stemming would be a positive change because it would allow students the option to only pay for what they want.
Rebecca Fast, a freshman in nursery school and kindergarten teaching, said she would welcome a discount for channels she does not watch.
Kleinpeter said one of Cox’s major advantages is the option to select package size based on financial and interest wants. Plans range from basic cable at $12.95 a month to digital cable with multiple premium channels and pay-per-view options.