When my roommate and I were trying to decide on a cable bundle we only wanted a few channels. ABC Family, Fox, and AMC. Others would be nice of course, but we were really only interested in those 3 which seems like it wouldn’t be very expensive. Since Comcast has a monopoly over apartment cable in Corvallis we could only purchase cable from them. This is a huge advantage to them because they don’t need to make their bundles appeal to everyone as much because they don’t have any competition. The link below is a list of channels in the bundles Comcast offers. Comcast doesn’t even offer a bundle that has less than 80 channels. This way Comcast can avoid people only purchasing a small bundle for less money. Comcast frustrates many people when it comes to purchasing bundles. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be worthwhile for Comcast to offer smaller bundles. The amount of time and money it takes for them to simply come out to a home to set up the cable boxes would exceed the amount of money they would earn from the smaller bundles. Plus, if people were willing to buy the bundles with channels they don’t need, then why would Comcast change anything?
http://www.comcast.com/customers/clu/channellineup.ashx
I completley agree! When I initially contacted Comcast to setup our TV and Internet the representative wanted to bundle me with “Xfinity Triple Play”. I mentioned that it was a house with roommates and we all used cellphones, she ignored me and mentioned that I would be saving money if I bundled. Within the so called Tv and Internet bundle they offer certain “channel lineups” and “boosted internet speeds” for added costs. Their mentality is to “cross-sell” the more services you have with them, the less likely you are to leave. They always mention you will be “saving money” but never mention what the added costs are or how much money you actually end up saving.
I hate Comcast with a passion!! They always try to market you more, but return your services with crappy internet connections. Not only do all of the apartments have to have Comcast, but most houses that students occupy also have Comcast because it is convenient. They more or less have a Monopoly over the entire City. They don’t have bundles that appeal to anyone really because they know we won’t go to anyone else because we don’t have the time, energy or money to search for another provider. It is really unfortunate and frustrating.
I have to start by saying, I loath Comcast. I finally cancelled my cable service from them last year as they were such a pain to deal with. I was always frustrated by their cable monopoly as well because my options were either don’t get cable or pay high prices for a lot of channels I do not want. I think Comcast uses their monopoly rather well because they know that TV is a relatively inelastic good for many Americans. Yes, they will convince some people to avoid their service, but most will begrudgingly pay the bill. As much as I dislike Comcast, they have a pretty stellar business model.