Did you know that some people in Orange County can order TV service from Time Warner Cable for $8.50 a month?

This $8.50 monthly fee is for a very select group of local residents: People who live in Leisure World and most of Seal Beach. And it’s people who only need access to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and other over-the-air channels, which are free if you have a good TV antenna. I’ve listed the channels available with this broadcast TV plan in the chart below on the right.

This plan was reiterated to me during a recent interview with Time Warner’s local executives, Deborah “Debi” Picciolo, president of residential services for the West Region. The topic? Why are cable TV prices so high? More on this later, but Time Warner pointed out that the cheapest plans available for most people is around $20. (Read past stories where the two have answered questions for me here: Time Warner answers some questions.)

So, I looked it up and documented how much Orange County pays for basic broadcast service (see city-by-city price chart below)– a plan presumably intended for folks who get poor TV reception and don’t want to pay the minimum $53+ monthly fee (before taxes) for real cable service. The $8.50 plan is the cheapest in Orange County. Most of the county can get the same TV package for $20.

For cable TV users who find themselves watching less TV nowadays or only watching the major networks, this is one way to save a chunk of change per month. Of course, if you really want to rid yourself of a TV bill, there’s always the free-TV plan of a good antenna and digital TV. This could be a better idea anyway if the current Fox vs. Time Warner spat doesn’t get resolved by New Year’s Day. Fox wants Time Warner to start paying for the “free” channel since, after all, the cable company charges customers for the free channel. See the earlier story, “Time Warner could lose ‘Simpsons,’ ‘American Idol,’ more Fox shows.”

Don’t expect to get CNN, ESPN or any other cable channels with this broadcast package though. For that, you’ll need to upgrade to a basic cable package that starts around $52 to $57 per month. Read more on the different prices at “Psssst: Digital cable TV is cheaper than analog cable.”

While I started working on this story in November, I just updated the information based on Time Warner’s recent price increases for cable subscribers next year. The basic broadcast plan was affected.

Interestingly, while most cities will see an increase in broadcast TV prices from 5.9 to 33 percent, some will see no difference. Yorba Linda residents will see an 11.1 percent decline, to $20 a month.

The discrepancy in prices is due to city agreements since cities charge different franchise fees to the local cable provider. I mentioned this a few years ago in a story about the cheapest paid TV service, “Local TV update: The cheapskate package.”

I’ve listed the new prices for broadcast service by city below, complete with links to the old prices. If those links stop working, please let me know and I’ll post the archived documents.

More stories on Time Warner Cable:

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