Happy summer, your favorite streamers cost even more now
Spotify, Max, and Peacock are all instituting price hikes in the next few months
Aux News the Olympics
One of the greatest joys of the months getting warmer is getting to spend time outside with friends, listening to the summery music or talking about that great new Sunday show all of you are watching. But while the conversation might be free, the song or that show definitely isn’t. In fact, they’ll soon cost you even more on average, as Max, Spotify, and Peacock are all planning yet another round of price hikes to hit at various points throughout this summer. Hooray!
Max announced their increase today, which is effective… today. Maybe they were hoping the fiery hype over House Of The Dragon’s season two premiere later this month would drown out the announcement? Per The Hollywood Reporter, the streamer’s ad-free plan will increase $1 to $16.99 per month. The Ultimate ad-free tier (which includes more devices, downloads, etc.) will also increase $1 to $20.99 per month, with the yearly versions of these plans increasing by $20 and $10 to $169.99 and $209.99 respectively. There may be a war between Green and Black brewing in Westeros, but this feels like an equally violent strike in the real world.
Spotify also announced yesterday that they were increasing their rates for the second time this year. The service’s Premium Individual plan is also raising $1 to $11.99 per month, while the Premium Family plan is hiking from $16.99 to $19.99 per month. The Premium Duo plan, which offers two accounts, falls in the middle with a $2 raise to $16.99 per month (via Variety). In 2023, Spotify raised its subscription prices for the first time in over a decade. Previously, the Premium Individual plan cost $9.99 per month.
But that’s not all. While they announced it back in April (via The Verge), Peacock is also raising prices this summer, just in time for the Paris Olympics which air exclusively on the platform. Both its ad-supported and ad-free plans are increasing by $2, which raises them to $13.99 and $7.99 respectively. These changes are set to take effect July 18th for new customers—a.k.a., those who don’t care about Peacock originals Ted or Apples Never Fall but rightfully want to watch Simone Biles flip her way back to world domination—while current subscribers won’t see the increase until August 17th. If you’re wondering whether that’s really just in time for the Olympics, the answer is yes: the opening ceremony will be held one short week later on July 26. It may be a hot girl summer, but it’s also going to be a broke girl summer if this trend continues.
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Setting aside my normal grievances with the direction of streaming for a bit, I want to say that I am very curious how successful the Olympics are going to be behind a paywall on Peacock. I suspect (with no evidence) that while many Americans tune in to the Olympics actively, a significant portion have it on in the background when there is nothing else. That latter group is not going to pay for the privilege of having background noise.
gambling is also bigger than it’s ever been so imagine there will be a lot of crossover between that and people paying to watch. probably very juicy data if a fan duel account and a peacock account use the same email to login.
I never really thought about gambling and the Olympics (especially given stuff like finding out the whole of Russia was likely doping), but it would be interesting to see.
I can tell you that once the Olympics are done, Peacock is gone from my platform. It is trash.
We got Peacock a million years ago when it was free and since then, the only thing we have used it for is the last Psych movie. Whenever we decide to watch a movie or something, we go through 4 or so apps and Peacock never even crosses our minds.
Right now I have Max, Amazon and Netflix. I have access to other streamers through a heavily discounted cable teevee package. That’s it. No more. I’m streamed out. If the streamers/networks/whatever the fuck they want to label themselves today want to cut costs, let me get a package where I don’t have Fox “news”, The 700 Club and a hundred other shit stations that so many of us subsidize with outrageous rates.Let’s start regulating these corporate cartels.
To me, that’s still the appeal of streaming: I have the option to not support niche ideological outlets if I don’t want to. I can choose exactly what I subscribe to. My biggest concern is the streamers racing to add sports to their line-up, because I remember that jacked up the cost of cable packages considerably.
Streamers are reinventing a square wheel and the outcome will be less programming at more cost.
Less programming at more cost than when all of these streamers started, of course. We know the streamers’ goal was to attract as many subscribers as fast as possible, not to build a sustainable, profitable business model. That’s why these companies borrowed billions of dollars to produce the flood of content we got and in the process devalued their own product by making customers think $10/month could somehow pay for a seemingly-infinite amount of high-quality shows. It was the kind of stupid, short-sighted thinking that has sadly become more common in our lives, and we absolutely need to better regulate Wall Street.I anticipate streamers will continue raising prices and introducing ads, but my dream is that we get to a round wheel instead of the square wheel that cable was. I’m not holding my breath though.
The 700 Club plays for roughly two hours a day on Freeform because of an iron clad contract. So that’s it.
I still think that is wild and I wonder why the 700 Club even bothers. I don’t watch much Freeform (usually just the Halloween movies for some good ol nostalgia) so its pretty funny that Hocus Pocus plays, shows ads for a ton of progressive programming, ends… and then the 700 Club starts up.
At one Disney offered CBN as much as they reportedly get in donations (Freeform is also forced to air the twice-yearly CBN telethon) in a year to pull the broadcasts, so its monetary value to the ministry is quantifiable.
Cable can’t chop one channel because of the crime families they’ve created. ABC and ESPN are all nothing deals. All the major networks are have a major channel with a glut of garbage channels attached, but what a deal.
I said this from the beginning. The insane amount of money being spent on content for these streamers eventually *has* to be paid for.
i cannot wait to see how these streamers handle the younger generations treating streamers the same way i treated cable and just…never sign up. or in a funnier case sign up for cable instead of streaming.
Cable is ridiculously expensive now too, so I doubt many will go that route. I keep Hulu around because it’s still pretty cheap (<9 a month) once it crosses that $10 a month threshold though I’ll probably start cancelling it during periods where there’s nothing I super want to watch. I watch more Youtube than anything these days.
yeah i mean i’m talking about 5-10 years from now so who’s to say what anything’s gonna cost (except all of it’s gonna be more).i do wonder if, in the same way that millennials saved vinyl, there’s a possibility that the nostalgia of ‘tv as a concept’ could have some sway. when i was in my 20s it was wild that i had a tv to a lot of people, not in an ‘anti-tv’ way, but everyone just watched stuff on their laptop in bed. i wonder if the future version of ‘i can’t believe you have a tv!’ is gonna be ‘i can’t believe you pay for netflix!’i, too, watch more youtube than anything. i basically treat it like PBS.
I think that’s the sweet spot FAST platforms like Tubi and Pluto could capitalize on. Why pay for a service, when there’s quality programming for free as long as you watch a few ads? And hey, instead of aimlessly browsing through a catalog, why not try one of these “livestream” channels and see what’s playing. Hey, it’s “live” so there can be a community aspect to it.
Netflix is profitable. Disney+ is finally, barely/almost, profitable (if you don’t count the losses incurred by ESPN+ and Hulu). Max is temporarily, minimally, profitable after Zaslav slashed expenses to roughly zero. Prime video…who knows since it’s revenue is lumped in with free package delivery.That’s it. Really only Netflix is making a real go in this business. So the options are:Accept the lossesRaise pricesInsert adsOption one is only available if you have a stunning amount of vertical integration and can use it as a loss leader to make money elsewhere. Apparently not even Disney is willing to do that so it’s pretty much out.
Is AppleTV+ doing the 1. ?
I don’t see how that works for them. They don’t have a theme park or merchandise to sell. They don’t have many theatrical movies to sell tickets for or broadcast/cable channels to push. I don’t think a lot of people get a new phone or iPad just for the 6 months of streaming.
I think Apple hoped TV+ would just be another way to keep people within the Apple ecosystem. They may have just picked a horrible time to get into original content, since in addition to dealing with inflation and rising interest rates like everyone else, the DOJ is finally taking their walled garden to court (which wouldn’t affect the TV+ division unless they’re depending on hardware sales to offset losses).
Max is considered profitable because it’s intimately tied up with linear HBO subscriptions, as many as there are remaining.
And, in the meantime, Tubi just keeps getting better and better. They’ve really upped their classic movie offerings in the past few months.
The only streaming I’m paying for right now is Starz, and that’s only because I got a $.99/month offer. I’ll be cancelling when that’s up.
I wonder if it would be feasible (if one had the wherewithal) to simply refuse to subscribe to any streaming service unless you can get an unbelievable one-off deal. To avoid “you can only get a promo price once per account” issues, you’d have to be willing to make numerous accounts, which is fine; I see some deal where I can get 3 months of Hulu for five bucks, I create an account, sign up, watch what I want on Hulu for three months, and then simply drop the account when it’s over and forget about it.You wouldn’t really be able to watch everything (or maybe even most things) at release, but if you don’t care, there’s always going to be a huge backlog of worthwhile shows/movies available, for when you get around to it. And of course there’s the other option, which is to simply not bother with TV/streaming at all and spend time and energy on other things.
i have a feeling the promo price/‘free trial’ era is gonna end realllllly soon.
Tubi, Pluto, etc. are wonders. I still pay to see recent shows on streamers, but these free platforms are incredible. They don’t get talked about but I’ve seen registration numbers — they’re huge. They just don’t have as many flashy premieres so journalists don’t seem to know how to cover them.
I honestly watch Pluto more than my cable TV now. Far more, really.The only problem is that it can take them 3 months to move to the next selection of shows in the rotation. For example: They’ve been playing seasons 3 and 4 of Married With Children since like April 1, and won’t change till July.Its not like that with every show, but they do have limits on seasons they *can* show in some cases.
Library card gives you access to kanopy that is free streaming of old movies, documentaries. Sign in with library card. Won’t solve all watching choices, but it’s an option.Libraries also have tons of movies, tv series to check out.Free.
Tubi’s offerings are totally surprising every time I go there. They have a crazy collection of stuff from well-respected movies to low-budget junk that literally looks like high schoolers made it.
The selection on Tubi continues to surprise and delight. I spent last weekend using their library to recreate the sensation of watching USA’s Up All Night and had a blast!
I think they don’t write about these FAST streamers solely because they don’t have new shows which are the only thing entertainment websites care about (and only because without new content these sites would cease to exist or, I don’t know, actually get interesting). The cold hard reality is the average TV viewer watches a lot if not a majority of older shows and movies just like they always have and always will.Also, somebody please remind “broke girl” that it’s summer and she needs to turn off the TV and go outside and play.
Great, now I feel even less guilty about pirating the shows from these fuckers.
At these prices I feel like I’m better off going to the movie theater now and then. If nothing else it gets me out of the house.
Many theaters offer discounts on Tuesdays or matinees or some such, so you’re sure to find a cheap show somewhere.
These prices aren’t so bad if you’re cycling through platforms. It can be annoying, but at least with streaming you can push through whatever you wanted from Netflix most urgently and then, for the following month, go through Hulu and so on. It takes effort (and a good calendar reminder) but as long as you have patience to see whatever cool new thing lands on platforms it can be remarkably affordable overall. At the same time, I’d love to read something that breaks down what we SHOULD be paying for streamers. Particularly, what do they have to cost to be profitable and pay workers and execs equitably while still delivering (usually) more content than traditional cable systems generally offered in any given month. I think the era of erroneously discounted, high-volume content firehoses messed with everyone’s perspectives (including mine). I’ve lost a sense of what these things should actually cost.
lost of sense of what they should actually cost and they’ve completely eroded what a show being successful means, as well.like, when we’re judging stuff by millions of seconds consumed or whatever we’ve lost the plot.
80 BAZILLION SECONDS! Here’s your check for 0.0000000003 cents. The more nonsensical the metric, the better for the streaming execs.
Max is $149 re-up on July 4th for me.Still trying to make up my mind.