Cable TV prices keep going up, but cable companies may not be entirely to blame. A big part of what determines the price consumers pay for TV is how much media companies -- the network owners -- charge distributors for their channels.
And those costs are increasing quickly. Comcast 's(NASDAQ: CMCSA) programming expense, to cite one example, increased 8.4% in the first half of the year and the company said it expects programming expenses to continue to increase."