FPB Board approves FOX agreement

Public hearing set to review rates and billing changes.

Frankfort Plant Board cable customers are no longer at risk of losing the most viewed cable network in Frankfort in 2019, the FOX News Channel. The board approved an agreement with the Fox Corporation to continue to offer their cable networks, also including FOX Business, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2. The term of the agreement is through Dec. 1, 2023 and includes TV Everywhere and Video On Demand rights. 

While the FOX agreement represents more than a 14 percent increase in total programming license fees, the increases are lower than what was budgeted and anticipated. The networks operate on a take all or have none condition. Therefore, this agreement does not allow a la carte purchasing.

In other news, the board scheduled a public hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 5 p.m. to review cable rates and billing changes. The meeting will be held in the FPB Administration Building Community Room.

The public notice proposes to reduce the Limited Cable rate from $16 to $12.79 per month.

As network programming costs increase annually across the entire channel line-up, FPB must propose to raise the Classic Cable rate from $67 to $69.50 per month in the public notice. The increased rate is needed to pay the increases in the wholesale license fees FPB must pay to programmers.

Because seven corporations own or control nearly 90 percent of channels, they use their size and market power to demand higher fees for their programming. In addition, they require cable operators like FPB to carry their less popular networks (at a price) as a condition of providing the most popular ones. The media companies dictate broad carriage of their channels limiting FPB’s ability to be more flexible with customer choice.

In order to increase transparency in Classic Cable rates, the public notice proposes to break out the Classic Cable rates on customer bills including a Customer Charge, which goes to FPB to maintain the cable system and provide customers the cable service; and a Cable Network Pass-through Fee, which goes directly to the media ownership groups for the programming content. Effective March 1, 2020, the Customer Charge would be $12.79 and the Cable Network Pass-through Fee would be $56.71, totaling $69.50.

This breakdown will show that FPB operating expenses, which have decreased every year since 2002, only make up 14 percent of the classic cable rate, while the other 86 percent is a programming expense that goes directly to the networks.

A rate change for Bulk Cable I and II will also be discussed at the hearing. This includes cable service at hotels, dormitories and office complexes. These increases are the same percentage as the Classic Cable rate change proposal.

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