Comment by turnsout
7 hours ago
If they like money, they'll just roll HBO into Netflix and raise prices. I really doubt Disney's complex bundling/pricing scheme is helping their bottom line.
7 hours ago
If they like money, they'll just roll HBO into Netflix and raise prices. I really doubt Disney's complex bundling/pricing scheme is helping their bottom line.
I think it is. ESPN is a totally separate vertical than the rest of what Disney offers, and it’s subject to compulsory high rate licensing.
Excluding it from the bundle lets Disney be price competitive.
It also underlines in the US that sports is probably the last interest in linear programming. It would be interesting to get a picture of how many US customers will pay for ESPN in a Disney+ bundle but not Linear Hulu. I'm sure Disney will be tracking it, and probably made a smart move making the more interesting bundle the one with ESPN but not Linear Hulu.
There's a huge interest in sports in the US (and elsewhere). And broadcast rights reflect that. But there are also a bunch of people who would happily take a discount on all their other video to not include sports.
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I could buy the ESPN carve-out, but the fact that Hulu is separate is just mental.
I dunno about that. They introduced the ad supported tier as a way to reach consumers at a lower price point and apparently it’s been very successful. I don’t think they want to lose those customers by jacking up prices now.
Netflix has raised prices about 25% at the premium tier since they released the ad-free version in 2022. The with-ads plan has also seen increases since launch.
Their prices have been inching up. I pay for the lowest non-ad tier, and it's $17.99/mo. If I wanted 4K & HDR, it's up to $24.99/mo. At $7.99/mo for the ad-supported tier, they could easily bump that to $9.99/mo if it included HBO/Hulu/ESPN.
I suspect you are right, but I’m not alone in walking away from this trend.
They lost me as a longtime customer after too many price hikes and low programming quality.
Netflix shows are “have it on in the background” quality whereas HBO has released some of the best TV of all time. This merger has enshittification written all over it.
I agree, but HBO has also gone downhill as they lost talent to other services. Currently the streamer with the highest consistent quality is Apple, which is pretty unexpected.
Apple has the benefit of the original Netflix exclusives model (and the original TV primetime distribution model) that they don't operate their own studios and instead can pick and choose from the cream of the crop of the more expensive projects from the others. (Severance is from Ben Stiller's Red Hour mini-studio, Ted Lasso and Shrinking are from WB Television, Slow Horses and Pluribus are from Sony Television, Foundation and Murderbot are from Skydance/Paramount Television, and so forth.)
I'm sure Apple is contributing significantly to many of those shows' budgets and helping them all reach similar quality bars, but Apple is also certainly benefiting from spreading that budget across multiple studios and not putting all their risk in (micro-)managing their own studio. Whereas a lot of the "streamer X has gone downhill" seems to be directly related to being able to source projects only from sibliing studios creating very simple monocultures of every project feeling the same and risking that bad or unlucky projects tainting other projects in that monoculture stew.
Very hit or miss though. And withs some exceptions like Slow Horses, their productions feel overly produced, oiled by agency crossover and 360 package deals, i.e., manufactured from script to screen. Even Pluribus has that smug sanitized gloss.
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I’m pretty sure I would riot if they raise prices more. I’m not paying $30 to one streaming service. Criterion and Kanopy are working great for me as is.