A few days ago Chris Mills from BGR published a story about how the future of cord cutting looks grim. As you would suspect, many of our readers sent us links to the story and shared their outrage about it.
So why does the future of cord cutting look grim right now? According to Mills, it is because a report from The Diffusion Group says most TV companies plan to have their own direct-to-consumer streaming service available by 2022.
Mills says, “That means that rather than paying for one cable bundle, you might get stuck paying Disney $24.99 per month for access to Star Wars and also ESPN, CBS gets $6.99 for its channels, HBO takes its standard $12.99, and, well, you get the idea.”
My issue with this is most of these numbers are made up. There is no evidence to support Disney is planning to sell their 2019 streaming service for $24.99 a month. Disney has said their new ESPN streaming service will cost just $5 a month and most reports have the new Disney streaming service that launches in 2019 costing $5 or $6 a month.
Discovery recently purchased Scripps, giving them access to networks such as HGTV. Discovery is said to be planning a streaming service that will give you access to all Discovery-owned content, including the new Scripps networks, starting at $6 a month.
We did not find anything to support the claim that Disney plans to launch their streaming service at $24.99 and, if they did, it would likely quickly fail as services like Netflix and Hulu offer more content for less than half the price.
As for CBS, most Americans can easily get it free with an antenna.
I would also say that far from looking grim, the future is taking us farther down the road to à la carte TV, which cord cutters say they want. Although it is not perfect, we are starting to look at the real possibility of subscribing directly to the networks we want without having to have a massive bundle.
Look at Philo, a joint effort of AMC, Discovery, Scripps, and Viacom. It starts at just $16 a month.
Don’t look for networks to back out of deals with the likes of Sling TV and DIRECTV NOW. These bundles are still cash cows for networks such as Disney because they mean even people who do not watch their shows still pay for their networks.
What is really happening here is companies such as Disney are looking for ways to reach cord cutters who do not subscribe to cable TV or a live TV streaming service. They want to offer more flexibility to attract the estimated 20 million Americans who have decided cable TV and live TV streaming services are not for them.
So instead of saying the future of cord cutting is grim, I would say it looks bright. We now have more options than ever and, for the first time, with the launch of 5G and fixed wireless home internet services we are looking at the real possibility of true options in the world of internet service providers.
Never before has the future of TV looked so good for the American people. So take any doom and gloom story with a grain of salt. Resist the temptation to only look at the bad and ignore the daily and weekly progress we make in the world of cord cutting.
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