Broadcast & Sports

Nobody would subscribe to taxes, fees, surcharges.

These are not government-mandated surcharges to subscribers.  These are broadcast stations charging Cox to carry programming on their cable system.  Cox is just passing their bills onto us.

Does the FCC mandate providers to charge subscribers this surcharge?  No.  Does the FCC allow providers to charge subscribers this surcharge?  Yes.

Cox should only list services to which I subscribe under TV:
•  Contour Advanced TV Service    
•  Contour Receiver
•  HBO

...and itemize Broadcast and Regional Sports surcharges under TV TAXES, FEES AND SURCHARGES as they do with telephone service.

I did the maff and all these taxes, fees and surcharges are 16% of my bill.  I don't think cigarettes are taxed this much.

Surcharges have become a material amount of our bill.  Since Cox is allowed to pass along those charges to us, I don't see that changing.  I wonder how much markup is applied  to those pass through charges.  The sums of broadcast and regional sports surcharges always seem to be convenient, round numbers. 

Anyway, I don't mean to detract from the points you made, but the cigarette tax analogy got me curious.  I realize it was probably a non-serious comment, but I did some research about it because of, you know, the curiosity thing.  You might be interested in what I found out.  It could surprise you.  This may be a bit off topic, but a little Public Service Announcement never hurt anybody.  

The following information was obtained from the website at the bottom.

For all states and DC:

(a) Cigarette taxes as a percentage of total cost = Taxes / Total Cost

The average tax as a percentage of total cost for a pack of cigarettes is 30.8%, the high is 50.5% (DC) and the low is 7.7% (Missouri).

Forty-three (43) states (including DC) have a cigarette tax percentage of the total cost of a pack of cigarettes that is more than 16%. 

(b)  Cigarette taxes as a percentage of cost before taxes = Taxes / (Total Cost - Taxes)  This is the actual cigarette tax rate.

The average cigarette tax as a percentage of cost before taxes is 44.4%, the high is 101.8% (DC) and the low is 8.4% (Missouri).

Forty-eight (48) states (including DC) have a cigarette tax as a percentage of cost before taxes that is more than 16%.

The average price for a pack of cigarettes is $7.01.  "Hey, buddy.  Give me $7.01 every day and I'll make you stink all the time and cause health issues for you and others around you".  I'm glad I don't smoke.  

I can't attest to the accuracy of the website referenced below.  However, a search of several sites gave similar state-to-state comparative results.  Prices from the site below were generally the same or higher than another site.  From that, I inferred the site below probably had more recent information.

balancingeverything.com/.../

These are the only 2 TF&S to be steadfastly "rounded" and entirely arbitrary.  It's like the cable-box rental:  "Meh…$10 sounds good."

Perhaps I should have used gasoline as a comparison.