Comcast hiking TV, internet rates

PORTLAND — Comcast will raise rates on many Oregon cable TV and internet plans by $5 a month in October, and boost additional fees most subscribers pay for sports and local channels by as much as 50 percent. That adds another $3 to most monthly TV bills.

The Northwest’s largest cable TV company has 600,000 subscribers in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Comcast’s rate hikes come in the context of growing competition from online services that offer many channels without a subscription, and from local providers CenturyLink and Frontier Communications.

Comcast, meanwhile, has steadily upped its own internet speeds, dramatically improved its cable TV box, and Comcast SportsNet Northwest just signed a new contract to carry every Portland Trail Blazers game.

None of that has had an appreciable impact on Comcast’s share of the Portland market, nor its pricing. Nationally, the company said its prices are going up by about 3.9 percent this year, which is nearly five times the rate of inflation but in line with past Comcast rate hikes.

“Unfortunately, the cost to deliver programming continues to increase significantly — especially broadcast television and sports programming — which are the largest drivers of increases in price adjustments,” Comcast Oregon spokeswoman Amy Keiter said in a written statement.

Comcast owns one of the biggest broadcast networks, NBC, and it has cumulatively paid billions of dollars for sports programming.

The rate hikes don’t affect viewers currently under contract, and many subscribers get discounts for signing up for new service or signing a contract to remain with Comcast. However, Comcast is also boosting special broadcast and sports fees, and those price hikes apply to all cable viewers who subscribe to the local broadcast channels or to sports channels, such as ESPN.