Charter’s CFO Chris Winfrey just shined a light on a big issue in the pay tv industry that’s beginning to also be an issue for cord-cutters. While Speaking at a virtual event for Bank of America Chris state: “The programmers have made this product unaffordable for a large part of the population despite the fact that we tried to find ways to get valuable product that customers can afford into their hands.”

Typically when content makers (Programmers) like Sinclair, Fox, HBO, ECT increase their rates for the content holder (Charter, Sling, Dish, ECT) these high rates typically trickle down to the consumers. When the content holder doesn’t agree to the terms, the programmers will typically pin the loss of channels on the content holder without disclosing any information.

Ask yourself this question. ” Why are Programmers pushing for carriage fee increases for their networks while also pushing their own streaming services”?

Winfrey also argued that Programmers are increasing their rates for pay tv companies in a way that’s higher than most customers can afford. This trend is also starting to affect cord-cutters. Top streaming services have had to increase their rates by 25% because of carriage agreements.

Don’t blame the content holder, blame the content maker.