Brat summer is over. It’s officially the era of subscription fatigue. Disney is raising the price of its multiple streaming services. Starting in the fall, Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ are all going up in price by $1-$2, depending on your tier.
On October 17, Disney will increase the price of its eponymous Disney+ streaming service to $10/month with ads or $16/month without. Hulu’s ad-supported tier will cost the same as Disney+ but shoots up to $19/month without ads. Weirdly, you can’t pay for that package as an annual bundle. And sports buffs, ESPN+ is increasing to $12/month with ads, but there is no ad-free solution—after all, what would sports be without the advertising?
Hulu with Live TV will see the biggest bump on the bill, from $77/month to $83/month with advertising and from $90/month to $96/month without it. For comparison, I currently pay $73/month for YouTube TV and an additional $16/month for the Max add-on package. Sling TV, another popular choice for tuning into live TV, has varying packages, with its most expensive offering starting at $55/month.
The bundle offerings that include Disney+ and ESPN+ are the only plans that won’t jump in price. This bodes well for those of us who get our other subscriptions “paid for” by a carrier.
Even if you have already resigned yourself to the indulgence that is paying for streaming, news about price hikes stings at a time when it feels like everyone is struggling to pay the bills. Streaming is the main way people get entertainment to log off from the world and disassociate. It’s likely why Netflix, Paramount, and NBC’s Peacock also think they can get away with announcing current or imminent price hikes.
Disney has made it no secret that it plans to profit from its streaming endeavor. Its latest earnings report reveals it’s managed to do so on all three properties, barely a year after losing millions. It’s seen growth since then, too, despite the subscription increases, with nearly a million new subscribers in the U.S. and Canada.
In an earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that the company will begin monitoring account password-sharing in September. Iger insisted to investors that there had been “no backlash at all to the notifications that have gone out and to the work that we’ve already been doing.” Disney also plans to integrate free, ad-supported television, or FAST, into the app for when there isn’t an active subscription and as a value-add for praying customers who miss scrolling through a digital TV guide.
If you don’t like these upcoming price changes, you can always vote with your dollar by opting out. Or, set a monthly budget for streaming TV shows and the like based on what’s coming and what’s currently playing, and then subscribe and unsubscribe when it’s applicable. Or, give up streaming television entirely and move to the woods. Touch some grass.
