Hulu Boosts the Price of Its Live-TV Service (bloomberg.com) 36
Hulu said Friday it will increase the price of its online cable TV alternative product Hulu Live by $10 to $55 a month in what is the latest sign providers are having trouble making money on discounted packages of channels that rival cable. From a report: Hulu Live, which offers about 60 channels such as ESPN and CNN, was first introduced two years ago. The price increase takes effect Dec. 18, the company said in a statement. So-called skinny bundles -- cheaper online alternatives to cable packages -- have struggled recently as budget-conscious consumers seem more willing to just cut out traditional cable networks entirely. Sony is shutting down its offering, PlayStation Vue, in January.
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No, Slashdot will not voluntarily cover these important and consequential events.
The old Slashdot would actually cover an impeachment
Can we not? It isn't like there is no place else to go to read about it online. If anything it's difficult to avoid.
Please don't make me avoid every tech site also.
Mickey pimpslap. (Score:1)
According to a good friend in the business... (Score:1)
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Just as an example less ask ourselves if this is a good thing based on past results. Directv raise their price and lost 20%, I think, of its subscriber base in a month. Now they are on the verge of going out of business.
PSVue raised its prices and lost a shit of subscribers and is now extinct.
So maybe the executive that thought of this should thing, "gee is this a good ideal."
Fox sports (Score:2)
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Fox Sports Ohio is the sole reason I still have cable TV. At some point they're going to do the math and figure out that if they just sold Fox Sports by itself like HBO or what have you, they'd make more money.
Re: Fox sports (Score:2)
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Fox Sports Ohio is the sole reason I still have cable TV. At some point they're going to do the math and figure out that if they just sold Fox Sports by itself like HBO or what have you, they'd make more money.
Probably not. They probably have some sort of scheme set up like Disney does with ESPN, "If you want any of our other channels, you have to include this and pay us for the privilege."
FIFTY-FIVE? Who do they think's going to pay that? (Score:3)
I have never actually paid for Hulu, but the people I know who actually do pay for Hulu have told me it's barely worth it for $10/mo. I don't exactly know who they think is going to stay subscribed at over five times the price.
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I think Hulu is fully worth it solely for the fact that "60 minute" shows last about 42 minutes.
Brilliant (Score:2)
Yes, I did a free trial of it (to watch Supernatural this season) and $45/mo to watch otherwise-free TV with commercials?
LOL WHO DOES THAT?
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Does anybody know why it costs so much to use streaming tech to watch networks that are broadcast free over the airwaves? Why didn't the big network just set up their own streaming services, sell ads, and continue with business as usual?
I was happy with the limited selection of the big four network (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) broadcast OTA. It made choosing what to watch simple, and the movies were generally curated reasonably well. Due to a quirk of geography I can't get OTA network broadcasts in my new a
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CBS does have it's own streaming network -- but it's not free.
ABC now owns Disney+ and Hulu, so everything it produces will go there (unless there's some strange existing contract).
Fox and NBC do stream their shows, but to use it more than a preview, you need to be paying for cable or satellite tv. And I don't see any way to pay for it separately.
It's all just a mess.
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FWIW I was delighted to find that CW does for free on their app and there's a roku channel for it too.
I *think* it only allows you to watch the current or last-previous episode, no delving into the library of previous ones. Honestly, I can understand that - that would directly cut into their ability to sell DVD collections and (to that end) I'd expect content creators are fine with letting people see THIS OTA broadcast as well, but contractually c0ckblock archival watching unless there's some extra $ in it
Full circle then? (Score:2)
60 channels of shit with commercials for 55 bucks a month. Sounds familiar.
Try unbundling Disney, ESPN, and locals (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a good reason why "skinny" bundles feel increasingly obese and expensive:
1. Inclusion of local broadcast channels. In most markets, carrying local broadcast channels costs the service provider at least $10-20/month per subscriber. Is it REALLY that onerous to use a goddamn antenna to potentially slash $10-20/month from your monthly bill without sacrificing anything besides one or two square feet of space and 5-50 feet of coax (coax that's probably ALREADY THERE from an earlier cable or satellite subscription)? I mean, I could almost see paying for locals if you lived in rural Iowa or a small far-fringe town in South Dakota... but Jesus H. Christ, 85% of Americans statistically live within 20 miles of their region's transmitter towers, and could almost get an acceptable signal with a LITERAL fsck'ing coat hanger.
2. Forced inclusion of ESPN and Disney. These two channel families individually cost more than the sum total of ALL the remaining cable channels in most "skinny" bundles. ESPN and Disney love to play hardball & require inflicting their channels on all subscribers as a condition of making them available to any. At least, until SlingTV told them both to fuck off and launched its service without them to prove it was willing to do it, until ESPN and Disney came back to the negotiating table willing to bargain. This is why SlingTV is relatively cheap compared to everyone else (at least, SlingTV without Disney & ESPN).
IMHO, the golden era of satellite TV was Voom... HD and exceptionally high-quality minimally-compressed SD channels via satellite, with an antenna fed to your box's second coax input. From a usability standpoint, it was all one coherently-numbered channel lineup, because the box simply grabbed the signal from the satellite or OTA antenna as appropriate & sent it to the TV. Dish & DirecTV did the same thing for HD customers, until they finished launching their new constellations whose sole purpose was to retransmit local channels and made paying for them mandatory.
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Where I am, its 40 miles, and takes an outdoor antenna, above surrounding buildings, or else nothing.This can be hard for people in one of those god forsaken apartment blocks. It used to be apartment buildings would have an MATV system with a single rooftop antenna and a coaxial distribution system to the units. However, the complexes usually got snookered into deals from cable to companies to force residents to pay for cable. This sucks big time.
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1. Inclusion of local broadcast channels. In most markets, carrying local broadcast channels costs the service provider at least $10-20/month per subscriber. Is it REALLY that onerous to use a goddamn antenna to potentially slash $10-20/month from your monthly bill without sacrificing anything besides one or two square feet of space and 5-50 feet of coax (coax that's probably ALREADY THERE from an earlier cable or satellite subscription)? I mean, I could almost see paying for locals if you lived in rural Iowa or a small far-fringe town in South Dakota... but Jesus H. Christ, 85% of Americans statistically live within 20 miles of their region's transmitter towers, and could almost get an acceptable signal with a LITERAL fsck'ing coat hanger.
In many cases the ATSC broadcast range has decreased so potential customers are no longer in range. Or potential customers live where a suitable antenna is not feasible like in an apartment.
And what about people who want to receive local broadcasts from a different market?
Re: Try unbundling Disney, ESPN, and locals (Score:2)
> And what about people who want to receive local broadcasts from a different market?
AFAIK, with the exception of LA & NY affiliates (possibly Honolulu, Anchorage, and San Juan) that are only available to people who meet the FCC's eligibility requirements, you can't get that from ANY cable or satellite tv service.
You can (sort of) do it now via streaming IF the local affiliate allows it, but most of the time they'll only allow it for their own local content & either geofence network/syndicated co
Seems to me streaming is fast (Score:2)
But dam! streaming is already closing in on the cost of cable. Moving to streaming really allowed me to stop caring about most TV. I am now thinking I can make more changes and dump hulu,
I pay 55 now, so when you add 10 more that will get the final hulu price around 65+ per month(with the higher taxes and such).
I do pay for ad free but I
Live TV? (Score:2)
Apart from the mentioned in here Sports and News, why pay for Live TV? Unless you are really hardcore and love to watch C-SPAN, even news isn't really necessary to be "Live." TV shows, etc. can be watched on demand any time you like with no commercials.
Even if cost wise you subscribe to enough streaming services to compare with the cost of cable, not being interrupted by commercials all the time is worth it enough to choose streaming over live. Based on personal experience admittedly, but most of the thi
I'm LAUGHING at the 'superior intellect', Khan. (Score:2)
We 'cut the cord' and cancelled our cable/satellite TV service and just 'stream' over the internet instead, look at how smart we are!
No more having to put up with 'bundling' of channels we don't want and have no choice about!
Best of all 'streaming' over the internet is {free || cheap} unlike shitty cable and satellite!
AAAAHAHAHAHAHA you're all back where you started from!
..oh and by the way what'll really bake your noodle? Cable TV is all digital, has been for a long time now, so your 'streaming' is hardly even cosmetically different. One cord looks just like another.
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Only if you let it.
For one I do not intend to put up with the crap. Disney+ for example, they took all the Disney shows off of Netflix so they could have their own thing. Sorry but Disney is not worth it enough for me to add another streaming service. I would recommend most to do the same, stick with Hulu (If Disney doesn't Disney it up too bad), Netflix, and Amazon Prime. (Or others if they are really compelling.) But don't go for the others that are splitting off, like Disney, BBC, etc.
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Just for the record, I don't 'stream' anything. I cancelled cable TV more than 10 years ago
Were you 3 years old when you canceled it because you sound like a fucking teenager?
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I would recommend most to do the same, stick with Hulu (If Disney doesn't Disney it up too bad), Netflix, and Amazon Prime. (Or others if they are really compelling.) But don't go for the others that are splitting off, like Disney, BBC, etc.
So, pay more for less. Yeah, that will show them.