It’s not your imagination—the bottom-line price you’re paying for cable TV (and likely Internet, too) is going up.

According to new quarterly financial results posted recently by Time Warner, Viacom, and Comcast, the three companies all experienced rising revenues largely as a result of the higher fees that they charge to cable and satellite TV providers to carry their content. (Then that extra cost gets passed on to the rest of us!)

These fees also illustrate what's at stake in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals case involving TV startup Aereo, which streams broadcast material captured over-the-air to Internet users—a model that is threatening to traditional providers.

As the Associated Press reported on Wednesday:

Time Warner, which owns channels such as TBS, TNT and HBO, credited the television division for a 24 percent growth in first-quarter net income to $720 million, despite a tiny drop in revenue to $6.9 billion that resulted from declines at the Warner Bros. studio and Time Inc. magazine businesses. Revenue at Time Warner's television networks grew 3 percent to $3.7 billion. Network subscription revenue—which includes the distribution fees—grew 5 percent. Advertising revenue at the networks fell 1 percent despite higher ad rates, in part because of weakness at CNN and the shutdown of channels in India and Turkey. . . . At Comcast's cable networks, which include CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo and SyFy, revenue grew nearly 5 percent to $2.2 billion, largely because distribution fees went up nearly 9 percent. Ad revenue also went up, by 2.5 percent, because of higher rates, though that was offset by lower ratings and reductions in content licensing revenue.

Is it any wonder that there have been an increasing number of high-profile disputes recently between cable providers and TV networks lately?