number one live tv streaming price hikes hulu live didn't wait till 2022 it already announced
a five dollar monthly increase from 65 bucks to 70 bucks for the base plan and with the
change the entire disney bundle now included hey it's michael here welcome to the channel and i'm
not picking on hulu live because it is highly likely other services will follow suit in 2022.
take youtube tv for example at the time of this recording the last price increase was in june 2020
when it went from 50 to 65 a month the price held steady for all of 2021 and a few popular channels
were added one factor that i suspect made a price increase difficult was the dispute between roku
and google which lasted for half of the year it's over now so youtube tv may feel like it can raise
prices without losing subscribers price hikes are inevitable as long as the bundle sticks around
because contact costs are only going up but what i'm looking for is to see whether that
five dollar a month price increase from hulu live sets a precedent are the days of 10 a month or
15 a month price hike's over let me know what you think down below in the comments and it's
something you know i'll be following here number two discoveries merger with warner media the two
companies announced plans to merge in 2021 and the deal is expected to close in the middle of 2022
pending regulatory approval the new name for the combined company is warner brothers discovery
current discovery ceo david zaslav will head the new company and he wants to reach 200 million
global subscribers in two years streaming assets for the company include hbo max discovery plus
and the upcoming cnn plus since this deal is not yet approved there is still so much that we have
to learn about what warner brothers discovery will look like and on the streaming side will it be one
mega service like netflix or a bunch of separate services like the disney bundle
and how aggressive can warner brothers discovery be in terms of pricing hbo max is already 15 a
month take a look here hbo max actually starts at 10 a month but the ad free plan is 15 a month and
discovery plus is between five dollars and seven dollars a month one thing that i am confident
about is that there will be a cheaper ad supported option with whatever the new company decides to
do months after the launch of discovery plus it was widely reported that the ad lite plan the one
with ads was a breakout hit and it makes more money per user compared to the ad free version
and to the surprise of executives more people appear willing to sit through a few commercials
not a heavy ad load for a cheaper monthly price number three can peacock turn things around i've
shared my struggles with peacock over the last year specifically how shows are just cutting off
before they're even over i'll be the first to say that i appreciate that peacock offers a free tier
but i also understand why most people do not want to pay for the service the peacock app is
confusing to navigate and all around just buggy now those factors may be reasons why peacock is
reportedly looking to overhaul the service in 2022 in hopes of gaining more paying subscribers now
peacock's got a couple of really big opportunities to win back subscribers in early 2022 with the
super bowl as well as the winter olympics let's move on the fourth streaming change i'm watching
the decline of live tv we're really living in a time of transition because the linear tv networks
are down in the ratings for the most part so they're moving a lot of their best content to the
streaming services but not everything some things are reserved for the cable tv networks because in
their eyes the best thing for them is for you to continue paying for the live tv bundle but also
subscribing to their separate on-demand service here is just one example of that yellowstone airs
on the paramount network of viacom cbs property so to watch new episodes as they premiere you
need a live tv bundle but yellowstone spin-offs are reserved for paramount plus which doesn't
have the live paramount network and adding to the confusion viacom cbs has a deal with nbc universal
and past seasons of yellowstone are available to stream on peacock obviously this is not ideal for
consumers but as more people cancel their live tv subscription whether that's cable satellite or
a live tv internet based service like youtube tv more content will be offered outside of the bundle
on these on-demand services that are cheaper sports and cable news are keeping the live tv
bundle alive check out this tweet for an example 95 of the top 100 broadcasts on linear tv in 2021
were related to sports but still that is not stopping some sports frights from moving
to streaming here you can see that the nhl is streaming out of market games and weekly national
games on espn plus yes the streaming service but will the regular espn ever go direct to consumer
not in 2022 here's a report from cnbc it says the number of pay tv subscribers needs to fall below
50 million before that is likely to happen and as of this recording estimates show it between 75 and
80 million paid tv subscribers and to be clear that 75 to 80 million that includes the internet
based options your youtube tv hulu live and sling tv but what i'm really looking for in 2022 is how
many people drop live tv including those services because if it's over 5 million it's going to show
an acceleration with cord cutting let's face it the only way to get rid of these bundles
is if enough people say i'm just not going to pay for a bundle of channels that i don't watch
anymore moving on to number five phone plan perks it seems like a long time ago when t-mobile was
the first to offer a streaming perk to its post-paid wireless subscribers that was with
netflix on us more recently it added one year of paramount plus then there's a t which offers hbo
max with its most expensive unlimited plan and some verizon plans include the disney bundle
as well as up to 12 months of discovery plus the major companies aren't just throwing in all these
streaming perks to be nice they're doing it out of necessity because they face the same troubles that
the streaming services do and that is with the churn rate going forward i'm interested to see
what if anything happens to the perks for hbo max and discovery plus because as i mentioned earlier
those two services are part of the big merger and i'm also watching t-mobile's live tv streaming
discounts after t-vision shut down t-mobile began offering 10 a month discounts for youtube tv
and philo subscribers and just like netflix on us these are designed to keep you from switching
to a new provider so if these free subscriptions extended trials and discounts are effective might
we see them added to more low-cost cell phone service providers and their plans
us mobile already does this with its unlimited family plans and it makes a whole lot of sense
because people who sign up with low-cost wireless providers are price sensitive and so are many
cord cutters so i got to know what other big streaming tv changes should i be following in 2022
leave a comment below and i'll add it to my list thanks for watching