Many of us are unknowingly contributing to Fox’s bottom line, just by paying for cable TV. That was a take-away message from this March 31 story by Kos, which I encourage you to read. To my horror, I learned that Comcast and other TV providers pay hugely lucrative “carriage fees” to Fox, just for the privilege of carrying its channels. Even if I never tune in to Fox News, I’m still helping to keep Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson on the air.
My mission, if possible, is to keep access to live cable news while opting out of Fox News. Cutting my ballooning Comcast subscription (up by $32/month in the last 12 months) would be nice too!
When I researched the services that Kos listed as alternatives to cable TV, it turned out that some of them also pay carriage fees to Fox. As far as I know, the only live TV streaming service that includes cable news channels without Fox News is Sling TV’s Orange plan, at $30/month. However, Sling Orange also lacks my preferred news source, MSNBC. Hulu + Live TV, Roku, FuboTV, and YouTube TV all apparently pay Fox to carry its channels.
Any advice? Did I miss another option? I signed up with Media Matters’ #unfoxmycablebox initiative — a campaign for cable and satellite TV providers to stop financing Fox News using my money — but that doesn’t feel like enough. One idea is fully cutting the cord and watching Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow re-runs on the MSNBC website. I get most of my news anyway from the Washington Post and NY Times.
For reference, here’s a table listing all the services I researched and whether they pay carriage fees to Fox:
Fox Carriage Fees by TV service
Service |
|
Pays Carriage Fee to Fox? |
Notes |
Sources |
Sling TV |
|
Yes for Sling Blue plan, no for Sling Orange plan |
Fox News added to Sling Blue in November 2019 |
Variety, 2019 |
Hulu + Live TV |
|
Yes |
|
Forbes, 2016 |
Roku |
|
Yes |
New carriage deal signed with Fox in January 2020 |
Hollywood Reporter, 2020 |
FuboTV |
|
Assumed yes |
Channel lineup include Fox News |
FuboTV, 2020 |
YouTube TV |
|
Assumed yes |
Ditto |
YouTube TV, 2020 |
Philo |
|
No |
Drawback: lacks any news channels |
Philo, 2020 |