CLICK: Customers will lose if cable network is shed

Over the last 10 years, Tacoma’s Click Network has made $52.4 million in profits, before taxes, per Tacoma Public Utility public documents. Click has had a gross revenue of $238.6 million and has paid $27.7 million in employee salaries, creating good and stable jobs that contribute to our local economy. Click has saved more than $4 million for educational and intergovernmental networks which are provided often for free.

Without competition, cable monopolies raise all of our cable and Internet bills, as they are doing across the country with “captive subscribers.”

According to a March 22 News Tribune article, cost for basic cable is $16.50 per customer higher per month. All Comcast and Click customers would see significant price hikes in their annual cable bill of at least $200 per year if Click is “gifted” to a privately owned company.

Noncompetitive rates will become an annual economic drain of more than $10 million annually. Loss of local jobs would remove another $2.5 million of salaries that are spent locally.

Comcast and Click subscribers should contact the City Council and request creation of a citizens’ advisory review panel of Click to support and determine the future for this public asset.

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 1:12 PM with the headline "CLICK: Customers will lose if cable network is shed."