This comment falls on the fallacy of assuming prices are defined by the cost of goods. They aren't. Prices are defined by what the market can bear. If the market is perfect, prices will fall down to zero Economic Profit[1], and are thus highly correlated with the cost of goods. However, if the market is not perfect, then the low limit of price will be higher than the point of zero Economic Profit.

Alas, the cable TV market is not perfect. Not by a long shot. Too many barriers to entry, too few players for competition.

The end result is that consumers are certainly overpaying for cable TV, be it through the subscription price or the advertisement time price.

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicprofit.asp

The point is moot when it comes to Game of Thrones. HBO is an advertisement free channel.

EDIT: I don't know why parent deleted his post, but the message was that HBO doesn't run commercials. (Which is true, although it does run promotions for upcoming HBO programs in between programs.)

Right, which also explains both why a HBO subscription costs so much and why they air so many reruns. However, not in all locales can one order HBO without also having a cable subscription.

I deleted after reading the article and realizing that it was talking about HBO in Europe, which apparently does run ads during the shows.

Thanks for explaining. In The Netherlands HBO costs Euro 15 ($19) a month, it doesn’t run ads, and the fee includes HBO On-Demand and HBO GO.

I don't know about other European countries, but if HBO runs ads there, surely the service will be cheaper too? </naïveté>

I wonder how much people would pay for advertising-free television?

In the UK we pay £145 per year [0] - call that US$250. For that we get 3 HD channels, 2 SD channels, 2 kids channels, a 24 hour news channel, a dozen national radio stations, and a bunch of local stations. All FTA via your aerial.

Oh, and you get the BBC websites.

All without adverts.

Totally worth it.

[0] http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/tv...

Most countries have public service broadcasters. However, the UK has the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, with arguably the highest quality programming. PBS in the US and CBC in Canada have far smaller budgets, which is weird given population size of their respective countries. Perhaps if tax payers would ask to pay more for public broadcasting, we wouldn’t even need commercial stations.

EDIT: I just found out that most of the funding for public broadcasters in the US doesn’t even come from taxes. Canada's CBC receives two-thirds of its funding from taxes.

About $1.99 an episode.