Starting in the new year, I'm going to be spending one month with each of the top streaming services, to see what it's like to rely on their offerings. Here’s my plan to cut the cord: I’m going to do a sort of speed dating, trying each streaming service for a small amount of time. These services were able to start at a low monthly price and work their way up, and since cable TV is so brutally priced, they don't need to worry about their customers going back to cable. Outlook: The streaming services are the big winnersĪfter doing all that math, I have no choice but to give it up to the streaming services - and now I’m wondering how I can leave cable behind. That's a total of $53.16 on top of whatever you argue the monthly package down to - for us that's $127.15. Then, it's $8.71 in taxes, fees and charges. Hulu with Live TV throws in a second stream for free, YouTube TV has three free streams and Sling gives you 3 with its Blue plan and only 1 with its Orange plan. Hulu's got 50 hours of DVR space included (and charges $15 per month to go to 200 hours).Īnd, yes, that means you're paying an extra $7.99 for simultaneous streaming if you have a second TV (we do). YouTube TV has an unlimited DVR that's free, while Sling includes 10 hours of DVR for free (and charges $5 per month for a 50-hour cap). And that doesn't include the $19.99 per month you pay for the right to DVR. Yes, those slow and seemingly always hot-to-touch cable boxes, those giant eyesores? Spectrum charges $7.99 per receiver per month for theirs. Sling TV? They've got a 1-year price lock guarantee right now, which is more trustworthy. That price may or may not go up in the next year, but you're gonna need to werk if you want to keep it. Then there's the fact that you're renting your cable boxes. The broadcast TV surcharge (for those pricey broadcast networks such as ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) is $16.45 per month. Years into our package, the Spectrum TV Select package now costs $73.99 per month according to my bill (we bundle it with internet, and not phone), and that's before a ton of surcharges. So you can tell that the expensive caveats are coming, especially as those prices are just for the first year.
While Spectrum advertises that the TV Select package (with a whopping 216 channels) starts as low as $44.99 per month, there's a big ol' asterisk next to that price. For reasons that don't really matter for this conversation, I've yet to cut the cord, but I still see the Spectrum TV bill.
To be frank, none of these price hikes should be enough to get people to move back to traditional cable TV.
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