By Liz Chapman, Bangor Daily News, Maine Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Apr. 2--BANGOR, Maine--Lucrative sports contracts and other rising programming costs will be paid in part by Adelphia customers who will see rate increases in their monthly bills beginning in April, a company official said Tuesday.
The basic cable package, which includes 70 channels, will increase $3.30 a month throughout most of the company's northern Maine territory, according to Gary Crosby, area manager for Adelphia.
Only a handful of the 132 communities served by Adelphia's regional office in Bangor will see a lower dollar increase, because they have fewer channels on their systems, Crosby said.
The basic cable charge for the 34 communities in the greater Bangor area, for example, will now be $41.25 a month. The company also is increasing its monthly access fee for digital service by $2 for all customers -- a $1 increase in the monthly access fee, for a total of $7 a month, and another $1 on any of the company's digital packages, which now cost between $15.95 and $35.95 a month.
'Every time an athlete gets another $1 million, [cable subscribers] pay part of that,' Crosby said Tuesday in explaining the increased cost to Adelphia and other cable companies to buy satellite programming.
Adelphia last increased rates in February 2002.
In addition to the programming cost increases, Adelphia also is facing typical inflationary costs for wages, benefits, utilities and other operational expenses, he said.
Crosby said the new rate increases are unrelated to the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. He said the company hopes to emerge from bankruptcy 'pretty quick' and has started new cable service construction, which has been halted for more than a year.
'People should not be surprised that we're increasing our rates because it is a part of the world we live in,' Crosby said. 'It's Economics 101, really.'
Customers who buy high-speed Internet service from Adelphia will see even higher rate increases. The company will charge an additional $4 a month for its 'Advantage' packages, which include basic and digital cable as well as Power Link for fast Internet access.
The company's 'Total Advantage' package, which includes just about everything the company has to offer, will increase $7 a month, to $106.95 for those with their own computer modems and $109.95 a month for those who rent a modem from Adelphia.
And that's not the end of it, either. Crosby explained that Adelphia will now pass through to all customers the full cost of the annual 'franchise fee' paid to municipalities for the right to operate in each town or city.
The franchise fees vary from 1 percent to 5 percent and can be used for any municipal spending, although many towns finance their local access cable TV systems with the annual payment.
The law permitting the franchise fees stipulates that the fee cannot exceed 5 percent of a customer's cable bill. In many towns, customers already pay the entire fee to Adelphia, which turns around and sends it to city hall.
The fee is listed separately on customers' bills. Crosby said a few towns in Adelphia's northern region don't ask for any franchise fee, while some, including Bangor, get the full 5 percent.
Roger Raymond, Bucksport town manager and a member of the Bangor area consortium that negotiated the Adelphia franchises for the region, said Tuesday the towns have little say in the cable operation once the franchise agreement is set.
'We have no control over the fees,' he said.
He said most of the towns in the Bangor consortium receive the full 5-percent franchise fee.
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(c) 2003, Bangor Daily News, Maine. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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