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Cutting the Cable Guide
- Thread starter Huntn
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No question, now there's 10+ streaming services to watch a handful of shows that your family is interested in.
Youtube TV went up in January, and I was seriously contemplating going back to comcast. Right now youtube tv has a slight edge cost wise, but the not much. If they raise the price again, I can see myself switching back. The wife and I watch more traditional type tv channels, discovery, science channel, HGTV, food network, cooking channel, etc. It won't be much of a push for me to leave.
And in many cases you can hit and run subscribe. Just did this with HBO. Unfortunately the wife makes me keep things like Disney and Britbox all the time. Now that football is starting, Peacock and Paramount, plus we have Sling, although I’m angling to get rid of that after football.
I had looked at sling and it didn't measure up. Tbh, I forget why now.
DirectTV has seemingly launched some new services, but so far I don't think that fits the bill, though I'm still looking into it.
My wife and I watch such a wide swath of channels, it seems to break some of the packages that hulu, sling, directv offer. We watch local, home improvement, sciencey, and sports. Cable, Youtube tv, and directv seems to be the only ones the eclectic mixture of channels, with DTV being the most expensive.
That list of yours - have you checked out Discovery? Right now the ad-free Discovery+ is still $9.99
FWIW, I originally paid $7 for discovery+ but bailed in 2023 when they raised it to $9. Guess they had another increase to $10 since then. Being able to watch those shows without ads is certainly much more enjoyable, but there aren't a whole lot of current shows which interest me and I already watched all the old episodes before cancelling my subscription.
Michael and I actually discussed discovery+ earlier in the thread.
Michael and I actually discussed discovery+ earlier in the thread.
We consider Prime a zero cost service. With what we save on shipping, we probably make money off of it.🤣
Finally sat down and figured out what we are saving using streaming services vs linear. It’s $900 a year.
So Disney pulled their channels from Youtube TV, so I lost ABS, all of the ESPN channels and the various college football channels. I felt that YTTV was borderline too expensive, and once Disney and YTTV kiss and make up, they will raise the price. Google isn't going to eat th price increase, they'll pass it on to us.
So I had looked into Sling TV last night, either for a temporary solution or permanent. In a twist of good fortune, my subscription to YTTV renews in a couple of days, so handled that and I'll give Sling a try
Costs differences Sling (orange + Blue + Discovery) 65 dollars vs. Youtube TV for 84 dollars.
As these prices keep on increasing, going back to cable also may make more sense. I had looked at the differences between comcast and youtube during their last price increase and comcast was starting to look like a better deal.
The channel makup of sling was the major reason why I didn't choose them before, I'm losing local channels ABC and Fox. I don't watch ABC a lot but I will not be able to watch some college football that is carried there. I have an introductory price with Sling, so it can't hurt to try them out
So I had looked into Sling TV last night, either for a temporary solution or permanent. In a twist of good fortune, my subscription to YTTV renews in a couple of days, so handled that and I'll give Sling a try
Costs differences Sling (orange + Blue + Discovery) 65 dollars vs. Youtube TV for 84 dollars.
As these prices keep on increasing, going back to cable also may make more sense. I had looked at the differences between comcast and youtube during their last price increase and comcast was starting to look like a better deal.
The channel makup of sling was the major reason why I didn't choose them before, I'm losing local channels ABC and Fox. I don't watch ABC a lot but I will not be able to watch some college football that is carried there. I have an introductory price with Sling, so it can't hurt to try them out
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I am not looking forward to the day when Fox *entertainment* shows are pulled from Hulu now that they have their own streaming channel.
I’ve been with Sling for years, a great value, knock on wood before the next price hike…
So far I'm withholding judgement, my comfort level in how YTTV is certainly playing into my mindset, but overall it seems decent. The only thing I'm missing is my local channels. At the moment, I'm not missing them too much - yet.
I have until the 4th when my YTTV sub expires, and I'll be doing some compare contrasting
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hmmmm, I've been under the impression that I generally don't watch network TV, and that's true for much of the time. But and its a big but, I won't be able to watch the NFL games on Sling. I think that is a show stopper. My YTTV doesn't expire until Tuesday, so I have a couple of more days to fully decide. I was planning on watch a game or two today, so I can do that, but if I wanted to watch some games next sunday and I'm only on Sling, then I'll be SOL
I literally watch nothing on YTTV except college and pro football. So I went with NFL Plus Premium for $100 a year—which includes NFL Redzone. That’s all I watch on Sunday during the day. Then, since I already had Hulu and Disney, I added ESPN Unlimited for very little more. That covers college and the Monday night game.
But I literally watch nothing else on YTTV. We used to cancel it right after the Super Bowl every year.
This is what people (google?) is accusing Disney of. Jacking up the rates, to push people to their own packages. I don't know if that's true or not but that line of thought certainly makes sense.
My wife really wants some of the local channels, as I mentioned, I didn't think I cared about them, until Saturday and I was like damn.
I don't have a decision yet, but one thing is becoming clear, I'm missing out on some thing with Sling. I'm missing out on other things with youtube tv.
Sports and local TV don't interest me at all. I stopped watching anything on YouTube over a year ago and haven't missed it a bit. So, Sling is a good fit for me but I can get annoyed by bugs in their app(s). I can appreciate how difficult and expensive this might get for a sports fan though.
This lawsuit is interesting. Since I don't follow sports, I didn't realize Sling let you buy day passes for games (also didn't realize that Dish owned Sling).
www.hollywoodreporter.com
This lawsuit is interesting. Since I don't follow sports, I didn't realize Sling let you buy day passes for games (also didn't realize that Dish owned Sling).
“The passes fundamentally disrupt this industry-standard model by allowing customers to purchase access to the most sought-after programming, such as major sports events, essentially a la carte for a fraction of the cost that the consumer would have had to pay to watch the event on a pay-per-view basis,” writes David Yohai, a lawyer for Warner Bros. Discovery, in the complaint. “For example, a sports fan could simply purchase a day pass and watch select programming, such as a highly popular sports game, without purchasing a month-long subscription or paying a higher pay-per-view fee.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Sling TV Over Short-Term Bundles
The filing comes after Disney sued Dish over the offering of day passes, which allow viewers to bypass monthly subscriptions.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
I have local channels in Houston. Most of what was network programming is now viewed on things like peacock and paramont, but I do watch AMC and FX on Sling.
It seems I only have NBC's local affiliate here in Boston, no CBS, or ABC - at least AFAIK
So the more I read about this issue, the more it seems that google has most of the leverage and disney may have over played its hand. Disney seems to be losing about 5 million dollars a day, from the loss of their channels on youtube tv, times that by 30 days that's 150 million a month or 805 million a quarter. Basically Disney needs google, where as google does not need disney. No one is talking about youtube tv failing or losing money over the loss of espn and abc.
Monday or Tuesday, Disney asked if google could put ABC back on the air for the election and google refused. Disney recognized that not having election coverage was going to be impactful to ABC's ratings and financials.
I don't know when this issue gets resolved but it seems disney isn't going to make up the loses by people signing up to their espn or hulu package
Back to Sling, without ABC, and Fox, there's really very little reason for me to keep the subscription, so I'll be letting it run through the month and not renew.
Monday or Tuesday, Disney asked if google could put ABC back on the air for the election and google refused. Disney recognized that not having election coverage was going to be impactful to ABC's ratings and financials.
I don't know when this issue gets resolved but it seems disney isn't going to make up the loses by people signing up to their espn or hulu package
Back to Sling, without ABC, and Fox, there's really very little reason for me to keep the subscription, so I'll be letting it run through the month and not renew.