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Movies Television The Almighty Buck United States Entertainment

Would You Pay $17 To $27 Monthly For All Video Streaming Services Combined? (telecompetitor.com) 196

With more streaming services coming from WarnerMedia, Apple and Disney, it has people wishing for a single plan to get access to all of them. A new survey from Morning Consult in conjunction with The Hollywood Reporter polled consumers to see how much they'd be willing to pay for access to all their favorite video streaming services. The research reveals that most consumers would like to pay between $17 and $27. From the report: Many Americans who stream media pay for three services at a collective $37 per month, though the optimum price for wooing far more households to multiple streamers is a combined $21 a month, the poll finds. The acceptable range consumers would like to pay for all their streaming offerings is $17 to $27. (The poll uses the Van Westendorp model, which seeks to locate the sweet spot in pricing between what consumers deem "too good to be true" and "too expensive.") The results of the poll may be unwelcome news for WarnerMedia, since its coming product, dubbed HBO Max, is expected to cost consumers as much as $17 monthly, whereas Disney's service, called Disney+, will run only $7 monthly when it kicks off in November. (Netflix has an $8.99 basic plan and $12.99 standard plan.) The poll shows that consumers are willing to pay much more for their cable TV package than they are for streaming, as the poll indicates that 90 percent of U.S. subscribers pay more than $50 per month for their service.

"The poll also found that [...] 26 percent of adult Americans have heard nothing at all about Disney+," according to The Hollywood Reporter. "About 35 percent of American adults have heard nothing of Apple's upcoming product, while 40 percent haven't heard of WarnerMedia's plans and 46 percent haven't heard of NBCU's."
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Would You Pay $17 To $27 Monthly For All Video Streaming Services Combined?

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  • Single app. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25, 2019 @08:36PM (#58988292)

    It's not the hassle of having to pay lots of different people. I just dont want to have to keep searching different libraries. Basically get on Netflix or I won't watch your content. The entertainment industry are assholes.

  • Sure, but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25, 2019 @08:37PM (#58988300)

    No ads. Period. None whatsoever.

    Price an average plan at $7/month, sure, I might pick 2 or 3. We currently have Netflix and dropped Prime Video due to their ongoing feud with Google resulting in not being able to use the Chromecast to watch Prime Video on the TV.

    My wife likes the VPN more. You're competing with The Pirate Bay at $6/month or so.

  • by DogDude ( 805747 )
    No, I don't stream anything. If it's something worth watching, it's on DVD.
    • Re:No. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25, 2019 @08:54PM (#58988384)

      LOL. I didn't think the Amish were allowed to use DVD players. Or computers, chief.

    • I agree, no. But there is literally no one who cares about my opinion on this topic. However, I feel impelled to grant my opinion anyway, because the summary queries it rhetorically. And thus art thou considered otorgated.
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        There is however a logical solution to the question. Would I consider it probably and then after due consideration I would absolutelt reject it. The only logical streaming choice is to switch a regular internvals to get the best out of what is to offer. So perhaps every six months swap streaming channels, it makes by far the most sense. If Netflix is best for you, stick with them longer, like a year and then swap out to one of the others for a quarter or so until you have got the best out of what is availab

    • I know we're all luddites on this site, but seriously? Come on........... it's 2019, not 2011.

  • It's interesting to see how the prices are all over the map. I don't know anybody who'd pay for something like HBO Max at that price though.

    • No. And don't forget, you have to include your internet plan in the total cost. So it's more like $100/month. I'll stick with a small mobile data plan and content myself with whatever is on broadcast or more DVD collection. Considering I haven't watched a single DVD this year and I don't watch much except the news, Murdoch Mysteries, The View, and the odd movie on the weekend, I'm not their market. I don't see how people can sped 8 hours a day watching TV.
      • and $50/month add on unlimited on Comcast

      • by bjwest ( 14070 )

        No. And don't forget, you have to include your internet plan in the total cost.

        Unless the only reason you have internet is for streaming, then, no, you don't have to include your internet plan in the total cost. You can include some of the cost, but only if you'd downgrade the speed if you didn't need/want it for streaming.

      • No. And don't forget, you have to include your internet plan in the total cost. So it's more like $100/month.

        Those prices are insane. I pay 19 bucks a month for unlimited gigabit fiber + unlimited 3G dongle + phone subscription with unlimited plan within the country, 50 GB/month unlimited speed and unlimited download at reduced speed after that threshold is reached, thousands of international minutes and TV with 65 channels (which I never watch anyway).

        As for combined streaming service, sure, why not, as long as they don't limit libraries based on countries. Netflix at some point was shameless enough to recommend

        • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          "I pay 19 bucks a month for unlimited gigabit fiber + unlimited 3G dongle + phone subscription with unlimited plan within the country, 50 GB/month unlimited speed and unlimited download at reduced speed after that "

          Which provider, and location?

  • by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Thursday July 25, 2019 @08:41PM (#58988328)
    No, I wouldnt pay $27/month for all services combined, but I would pay $40/month for indemnification against all copyright claims against me for streaming any content from any source. This would of course mean access to everything ever recorded, instead of whatever happens to be on their bullshit services this month.
  • $30 for access to all, and I'm sold. And by all I mean netflix, amazon, hulu, HBO Go, ESPN+, at minimum.

    And I'll go to $40 if there's one interface to rule them all.

    • $30 for access to all, and I'm sold. And by all I mean netflix, amazon, hulu, HBO Go, ESPN+, at minimum.

      And I'll go to $40 if there's one interface to rule them all.

      Absolutely. I've evolved past the point where I feel the need to own movies or tv shows on some physical media. I mean, if you think about it, the whole idea of owning movies or tv shows was only possible or practical for a few decades. Before that, if you wanted to watch TV shows you had to "stream" it by watching a broadcast. It was novel

    • This is literally cable. They aren't going to give you what you want, their going to package it into a bunch of stuff you don't want.
  • by j-beda ( 85386 ) on Thursday July 25, 2019 @09:23PM (#58988496) Homepage

    Maybe a lawsuit similar to the 1948 one that broke up the film distribution system at the time would be appropriate?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

    United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131 (1948),[1] (also known as the Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948, the Paramount Case, the Paramount Decision or the Paramount Decree)[2] was a landmark United States Supreme Court antitrust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would show their films. It would also change the way Hollywood movies were produced, distributed, and exhibited.[citation needed] The Supreme Court affirmed (a District Court's ruling) in this case that the existing distribution scheme was in violation of the antitrust laws of the United States, which prohibit certain exclusive dealing arrangements.

    • by dwillden ( 521345 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @03:48AM (#58989616) Homepage
      Wow, forgot about that case. That could indeed be very relevant. Especially when Disney goes live and all Disney, and FOX content get yanked from Netflix and other services. If the studios can't own their own Theater chains and deny distribution to other chains then so also they shouldn't be able to own their own streaming service and deny their content to other services.

      Great find. Will keep it in mind as this fracturing of the streaming industry we enjoy today goes forward.
  • I don';t object to paying, would even go as high as 50 bucks a month, But that has to mean a SINGLE subscription and include EVERYTHING. I would rather pirate the content than have the inconvenience of signing into 3-5 different services on each device and then having to search each for what I want.
    • That's what Hulu was meant to do... but instead the content providers split the pie up.

      • >"That's what Hulu was meant to do... but instead the content providers split the pie up."

        And Hulu doesn't get rid of all ads, regardless.

        https://help.hulu.com/s/articl... [hulu.com]

      • by Octorian ( 14086 )

        Yeah, originally Hulu did that for TV and Netflix did that for movies.
        Then the content providers started to see them as "the competition" and everything fell apart. Now we're in this mess.

        A few years ago, I even attempted to try Hulu + Netflix in lieu of cable TV. After a few rounds of "this show is not approved for streaming to a *device*, you may only watch it in standard-def on a PC", I said screw it and called Comcast.

  • by Bobrick ( 5220289 ) on Thursday July 25, 2019 @09:32PM (#58988546)
    Good lord, just go on the Pirate Bay and tell every single one of these streaming services to fuck right off. You'll be doing the right thing AND it's free.
    • Pirate Bay is not the right thing... you have to make sure the content workers get paid. The first Napster service learned that the hard way.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by markdavis ( 642305 )

      >"You'll be doing the right thing AND it's free."

      Pirating is not the "right thing." Your moral compass is damaged. Regardless of what you think of prices, laws, video companies, etc, paying NOTHING to the people who create that expensive-to-make content is not "right".

      Do you think it would be "the right thing" to sneak into a concert without paying? Into a theme park? Into a movie theater? Into any other type of entertainment? Tell me how that is morally any different. And if "most" people did tha

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      Just because they're dicks doesn't give you the right to be one as well. It's not free...fucking entitled morons.

      • OTA is free. That someone else captures and removes the commercials, instead of myself, should be wholly irrelevant.
  • At this stage, I'd probably just pay for a lifetime of Plex since I've been using their product for free for years as it is and download any series or movie I want from a torrent site and watch it whenever I want, wherever I want.
  • Aren't these the same media types that promised we'd have single signon, one password for every site, but ended up just covering their own empire, like AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

    We've seen basic channels now under a login-by-cable-co TV Everywhere initiative, so if you want all you content in one bundle, that's cable or DBS satellite. $199 month gets you basic cable plus the premiums, "gig speed" Internet, and unlimited home phone... seems like if you dump cable and do it all over the Internet, you're going to w

  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Thursday July 25, 2019 @09:51PM (#58988620) Journal
    Sure, sure. It'll be $27 for the first year or two. Then it'll be $30. Then a year later it'll be $35. Then during all that they'll either drop some portion of the service, or add something nobody cares about, or both. Five years later you'll be paying at least $50 per month. Seriously, do you people think anything ever gets cheaper, or that once they've got you hooked they don't just start jacking the price up and up over time? Before you know it you're paying the same as you would have for cable TV again, but wait there's more, that's just the streaming service, you're still paying for internet as well!

    Get an antenna if you can.
    • It will double every year, in a decade it will be $27,648.

    • >"Sure, sure. It'll be $27 for the first year or two. Then it'll be $30. Then a year later[...]"

      And after they destroy all other methods of delivery we might want to use. Like traditional cable, or disc rental, or disc purchase, etc. THEN the prices will soar even more because of no delivery content/method competition.

      And how long before they start injecting F'ing non-skippable ads? Because they simply can't resist.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Wait for the sell out to "the" cable networks.
      $100 for new cable networks to ensure the internet is "fast" enough...so the packets always arrive on time
      Add on a extra +$100 for the "streaming" services.
    • And isn't that just the bundling of "channels" - just like cable bills - the exact thing we don't want (99% cruft you'll never watch)?

      • by Octorian ( 14086 )

        Except by paying for the 99% you don't want, you're subsidizing the 1% you do want. And that 1% is different for everyone. And whenever there's a new show that looks interesting, but isn't in the 1% you decided to pay for, you don't have to go online and whine to everyone about how you're not going to watch it because its not in the 1% you're currently subscribed to.

      • Pretty much, yeah. xD
        Honestly, I'm chuckling a little at some people who think they're being so much smarter than everyone else.
  • 200+ channels and nothing I care to watch.

    As a kid, with like 7 channels, I was a TV addict.

    Now? Meh.

    I'll be moving later this year and picking TV back up. But only because my housemates want it.
    Otherwise, like my current place, the cable connection would only be carrying my internet traffic.

    • >"Re:Currently I don't pay for cable"

      But many of us do, so that has to be considered in all this price speculation.

      >"200+ channels and nothing I care to watch."

      I find a lot more to watch on cable than I ever did on Netflix streaming. Yes, 90+% of cable TV is s***, but between the science channel, scifi, history channel, and several more, there is a significant amount of very good content in a sea of blech. I never expected 200 channels of quality. My problem has been it has been PRICED as if there

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        Just an FYI, the "History Channel" and "Science Channel" are about as factual as your typical reality tv show. So yeah, if you just want to be entertained by BS, go for it.

  • Why would people pay anything for streaming services to begin with? It's like buying a ticket to watch turds swirl down the toilet
    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      "It's like buying a ticket to watch turds swirl down the toilet"

      Can we get a link?

  • between Netflix, Hulu & Crunchyroll I already pay $37. Good luck getting $27.

    And yes, it sucks having a family that all watch different things. Though I'm not 100% convinced anyone really watches Netflix anymore.
  • by WindowsStar ( 4692767 ) on Thursday July 25, 2019 @10:46PM (#58988878)

    I would pay $30 a month fixed for life for all streaming services commercial free and they must add all new in the future streaming services, must be a single sign-on account. I don't want a promotion of $30 and then it goes up. It must be all the streaming sources NOT just the top 3 or 4 all of them. I dropped cable TV because they just got too greedy they overcharged for years.

  • I don't know, maybe, I guess it depends? Do I have to sign a 2 year contractor? Can I pick and choose my services if I'm really not interested in one of them? Will there be ads?

    I'm an unusual case because I'm willing to pay about $15/mo for cable TV. After my local provider ended their lowest end basic cable package, I've not had cable TV for past 12 years.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      When I moved there was no antenna at the new place. Decided not to bother with broadcast TV anymore, just pirated the 0.5 shows/week I actually wanted to watch. Soon got used to it, not really missing it. Streaming services and TPB are enough.

  • >"The poll shows that consumers are willing to pay much more for their cable TV package than they are for streaming, as the poll indicates that 90 percent of U.S. subscribers pay more than $50 per month for their service."

    And many of us are paying that REGARDLESS because of significant content that will NOT be available through streaming (without ads- remember, we can all use TiVo/DVR's on cable). So these streaming services are often/usually ON TOP of what we are already paying for cable TV. And that

  • I barely have time for my active stuff to spend money in passively watching the TV (or whatever else you call it)

  • "The poll shows that consumers are willing to pay much more for their cable TV package than they are for streaming, as the poll indicates that 90 percent of U.S. subscribers pay more than $50 per month for their service. "

    Willing to pay much more? Crazy sh*t. Show me a US-based cable tv service anywhere that costs less than $50, nah, $60 even. There's no way for them to pay less, interpreting that information saying they are willing to pay more is simply idiotic. If you'd offer cable tv for $20 (with enou
    • Yep, it's not that we are willing to pay more. It's that we don't have a choice. Cable is a monopoly just about everywhere, so if you want live sports, news and similar current media you have to pay what the cable company demands (and the government allows them to demand by protecting their monopoly).

      And this is the big reason so many are cutting the cables. With a quality streaming service with a broad selection of material like Netflix or Hulu you can live without the current event type stuff.
      • Yep, it's not that we are willing to pay more. It's that we don't have a choice.

        You always have the choice of not subscribing to cable. People are voting with their dollars that cable is worth more than $50 a month.

  • by rho ( 6063 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @02:19AM (#58989404) Journal

    But it turns out I can pay much less for better content by introducing my kids to the library.

    • by rho ( 6063 )

      Also noted, unfortunately, the paucity of /. and how irrelevant it has become.

  • I would pay upwards of $50/mo for a cable-like rich subscription. A service where I could stream *ANYTHING* in *ANYONE*'s library, without commercials, on demand.

    That is all. Provide that, and take my money. Or go away and stop teasing us.

  • What does *all* video services include? Obscure Anime streaming sites? Youtube? Pornhub?

  • I do currently, at least until Disney hits the market.

    Netflix and Amazon Prime which I have because I have AP for the shipping discounts are the unified services. Hulu would be a third. We all ready have these unified services. It's Disney, HBO and all the other studios wanting their own piece of the pie that threaten the existing unified services and thus threaten to take what has been a reasonable cost for access to a wide variety of shows and destroy it by fracturing the streaming entertainment market
  • by lapm ( 750202 )
    Personally no, But add proper archieves of past shows and movies and were talking business. Would love to watch old westerns, etc...
  • I pay for just one streaming service. It has plenty of content and I can't justify paying more to watch a diminishing return on interesting content.
  • Of course they hit a roadblock, people who are ONLY interested in the premium don't want to pay more than they pay for the same with the shitty cable options which is about $10/ea for 3 channels with on demand. People actually want to get more for less, not pay more to get less. News at 11.

    Also the value of Netflix and recent blockbuster films has dropped dramatically in recent times. Netflix, I speak English, I don't want the foreign language crap showing on my feed when I downvote that kind of content ins

  • ... I doubt if that price would hold for any length of time. Once that service gets enough subscribers, it will start raising the prices until it starts driving customers away. In three or four years start to expect significant price increases.
  • The poll shows that consumers are willing to pay much more for their cable TV package than they are for streaming,

    I take issue with the word "willing" in that sentence. Consumers don't have any real competition in that space. I'm willing to bet that if you gave people the option to get local channels over the air, there would be many more unwilling to pay for a cable TV package.

  • seems to me combining services always leads to less choices and higher costs. And if there is a lower cost, it would be just a baseline but then unscheduled costs such as certain programs (typically the good stuff) have to pay additional fee.
  • Streaming is actually easy money, if you have content availability. Oh, yeah...

    The content (sorry, 'product') 'owners', like Disney and Warner, the two proximate examples, literally own the market. They can deny their product to competitors without significant penalties *if* they also sell it. Disney is in the dominant position here, but Warner, Sony, others have enough product to drive direct streaming sales for the ongoing costs of servers and pipes. Netflix is making its own, and it seems they are trying

  • The poll shows that consumers are willing to pay much more for their cable TV package than they are for streaming, as the poll indicates that 90 percent of U.S. subscribers pay more than $50 per month for their service.

    Streamers typically cut the cord because they are tired of spending $50/month or more on TV, so they stream content to pay less. Why would someone pay MORE for a streaming service?

  • My comcast bill for internet-only seems to creep up little by little every month. I've no reason to believe this would not be the same.
  • If they were easily accessible in one app.

  • Single, GOOD, unified interface and search. I don't give a damn where the stream comes from, but I do care how I interact with the thing. It needs to be simple enough that the kids can use it, and powerful enough that I don't want to smash the TV. And it needs to be lightning fast. Learn to code. Google on a recent phone is the minimum acceptable speed for search and UI updates.

    No exclusivity. I want everything ever made, whenever I want it. With the exception of current run stuff, that can be delayed some

  • The music industry figured all of this out decades ago. A carrier pays an ASCAP fee and can play just about any song in existence. Streaming services will end up the same way, some day. Until then, the carriers engage in a mutually self-destructive battle that balkanizes content access for paying customers. (Pirates will continue to enjoy full complete for free.)
  • Nope. I would pay for a steam modeled option. I pay once per episode to download an AV1 file wrapped in MKV that isn't bitrate starved to save on bandwidth, I can edit and transfer it to play anywhere I like, I'm not required to be online to view it and it won't be suddenly taken off the catalog due to licensing issues.

    And since I paid PER EPISODE if the producers feel they can cheap out on production and save it all for cliffhangers, those episodes are consequently reviewed poorly, they are remaining unpur

  • This is why Netflix worked. Then the corps got greedy and start breaking their portion off and wonder why piracy rises -- because they made buying in a hassle.

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