On Tuesday, Hulu debuted a new season of hit comedy Only Murders in the Building, starring the one and only Meryl Streep. Want to check it out? It’s easy. You can subscribe to the Disney-owned streamer for just $7.99 per month. Oh, you don’t want to watch ads? No problem. You can upgrade to the ad-free plan for just $10.99 per month. But hurry, because the price is going up by $3 on October 12.
You’re right, that is a little expensive when you factor in your other TV subscriptions. But you can also bundle Hulu and Disney+ for just $9.99 per month—though you’ll have to suffer through those ads. Or you can wait until September 6, when you’ll be able to subscribe to an ad-free bundle of Disney+ and Hulu for a price of $19.99. You know what? Why don’t you just go all in and pay for ESPN+ too? That’ll be $24.99 per month—and you won’t be able to skip the ads when watching those live Major League Baseball games.
Sorry, am I confusing you? Welcome to streaming’s second decade.
At the dawn of the streaming wars—as legacy entertainment companies like Disney, Warner Bros., and NBCUniversal launched direct-to-consumer services to compete with Netflix—the great promise was that new technologies would make it easier than ever for those consumers to watch their favorite TV shows and movies. Forget the cable bundle; you could get smart, sleek programming from Netflix with the click of a button. Even premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime were suddenly available à la carte.
It didn’t last long. Netflix, the great streaming pioneer, stumbled. And Hollywood soon found out that streaming wasn’t exactly a moneymaker. Now every service is raising its prices, rolling out advertising, and finding new ways to make their subscribers pay for more than what they actually want. Showtime is now only available if you also subscribe to Paramount+ for a bundle price of $11.99 per month. HBO Max and Discovery+ have joined forces into a new service, Max, that costs as much as $19.99 per month.
And then there’s Disney, which on Wednesday announced that, after launching an advertising-supported version of Disney+ at the end of last year, it’s raising some prices and adding several new ways to subscribe to its trio of streaming services. When the changes go into effect later this year, Hulu will be one of the most expensive ad-free streaming services on the market—all the more reason to bundle. On a call with investors, CEO Bob Iger—back again for his second turn in the hot seat—said the plan is “a future where consumers can access even more of the company’s streaming content all in one place.”
But before things get streamlined, they’re getting even more complicated. So complicated, in fact, that Disney released a chart just to explain all the different ways you can pay for its streaming services (and that’s before the company eventually brings all of ESPN’s flagship live sports to streaming).
When Disney launched Disney+ in 2019, the company promised Wall Street that the streamer would be profitable within five years. Overall streaming losses declined to approximately $512 million last quarter, but Disney+ also shed nearly 12 million subscribers after losing cricket programming in India. With his bill coming due, Iger now says the company will follow in rival Netflix’s footsteps and begin cracking down on password sharing next year.
Almost makes you want to call up Comcast, doesn’t it?
Natalie Jarvey
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