Basically the prices are high because people are willing to pay them, and the competition's technology is not as seamless as they'd like you to believe. For example, compare DishNetwork or DirecTV to cable: Problem: you want to watch cable in two rooms. Cable solution: split the cable and route a new cable (if doesn't exist already) to other room, add cable box and connect to TV. done. Satellite solution: May require buying another antenna and mounting it up, or at the very least, adding a cable to the antenna, plus another receiver, all at your expense. Problem: You want another premium service. Cable solution: Call them up and say, "I want channel so and so, and I'm willing to pay $20/month". Clicky clicky on their computer, and boom, you can watch the channel. Satellite solution: may require adding another dish antenna to point at a different satellite, plus a switch, usually at your expense. etc. Not to mention that satellite dishes require line-of-sight from your house to the satellite (trees will block the signal). So the satellite companies have to charge less per month to get and keep you as a customer. If they were as easy as cable, their rates would be nearly identical.

Break it down into a per hour cost and it's not that expensive. Movies are about $7 an hour, baseball games are about $8 an hour so that makes cable real darn cheap.