Cable companies and programmers do not reveal their contracted programming rates.

Each of the 1,000+ cable operators in the US negotiates their network agreements separately, which will result in a range of programming fees. While every effort has been made to offer an accurate and representative picture of average programming prices, these rates should never been presented or published as fact. The monthly rates presented on this site include the estimated base cost of the programming (how much the network charges the cable company) plus the cable company’s estimated mark-up (which in the “expanded basic tier” was, until recently, regulated to 11.25%).

The monthly programming rates presented on this site are more directionally representative of the programming rates paid by large cable companies and DBS (satellite) providers. Smaller cable companies, new entrants (e.g., phone companies), over-builders (cable companies that build physical plant to areas already served by an incumbent cable company) and, smaller satellite players often pay considerably more for programming than the prices implied by this site.