Netflix and Disney Plus price rises mean a typical US home’s streaming bills now cost more than cable
The days of cheap TV and movie streaming are coming to an end. A new report by the Financial Times shows that thanks to recent price rises by pretty much all of the best streaming services, a basket of the top US streaming services now costs an average $87 a month. That’s up from $73 a year ago.
It’s a very different landscape to the one that delighted ‚cord cutters‘, who happily chucked their cable subscriptions in favour of much cheaper options such as Netflix or Disney Plus. As interest rates have risen and competition has become more fierce, streamers are finding it harder to deliver the growth their investors want – and that means they’re upping prices, removing content and cracking down on account sharing.
Just last week, it was announced that Disney Plus and Hulu fees were going up – Disney had already raised prices in December 2022. Disney Plus has followed in the footsteps of Netflix, which confirmed that prices were going up in March last year. It has also since removed its cheapest ad-free plan in a bid to garner more revenue.
The big question now is whether that’s sustainable. The FT quotes Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners, who asks: „Does cutting back on content and raising prices work? Can you raise prices another 30-plus per cent, reduce content spending and continue to grow subscriptions or maintain subscriptions?“
The short answer is: maybe.
