This week on TechHive: Why some cable companies are sacrificing their set-top boxes

This week, a video delivery company called MobiTV announced that it’s working with more than 50 small cable companies and telcos–covering one million U.S. subscribers–to offer streaming channel bundles in place traditional TV. The cable companies still offer the actual service, handle the billing, and put their names on the finished product, but MobiTV builds the underlying software and negotiates the requisite streaming rights with TV networks.

The result for consumers is lower costs even if they don’t fully cut the cord, at least for these small cable companies, and it’s a natural act of survival for them as more people take their TV business elsewhere. As for larger companies like Comcast and Spectrum, they’re still not quite ready to let go. Read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly rewind

The NFL Network itself isn’t as essential as it used to be. This season, only two Thursday Night Football games will be exclusive to the network, with the rest airing on Fox and streaming through Amazon’s Prime Video and Twitch services. Verizon will also stream all the games for free on mobile devices, regardless of whether you’re not a wireless subscriber. All the stranger, then, that DirecTV Now isn’t offering Redzone to go with it.

If you can’t live without Redzone’s whiparound coverage during football season, it’s available through PlayStation Vue ($50 per month, plus $10 per month for the “Sports Pack”), Sling TV ($25 per month, plus $10 per month for “Sports Extra”), and FuboTV ($45 per month, plus $9 per month for “Sports Plus”).

Hulu’s Showtime price hike: Hulu subscribers who pay $9 per month extra for Showtime will have to pay $2 per month more starting in November. The price hike will apply to existing subscribers on October 1.

The higher price is the same as what Showtime charges for its standalone streaming service. For now, you can still pay the lower rate by adding Showtime to an Amazon Prime subscription. You can also save the two bucks a month by combining Showtime with CBS All Access. It’s unclear whether those discounts will also go away come this fall.

CuriosityStream’s price drop: It’s not all bad news for streaming video prices these days. CuriosityStream–sort of an old-school Discovery Channel with on-demand science, nature, and space documentaries–is reducing its prices, from $6 per month to $3 per month for HD video, and from $12 per month to $10 per month for 4K. It’s also started streaming some free episodes with ads on its website.

The reason? People just aren’t willing to pay a lot for standalone streaming services that aren’t Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video, and according to the Wall Street Journal, CuriosityStream was falling well short of its original subscriber projections. In a twisted way, that’s good for consumers, provided the service can pick up some traction and persevere.

More catch-up

• CBS will add local news coverage to its free CBSN apps.
• Tablo’s Apple TV app is much better now.
• PlutoTV’s free streaming channels get their own input on Vizio TVs.

Save more money

While I’m not crazy about TiVo’s streaming video features, and adding whole-home DVR raises the cost considerably, its core recording features are still excellent. The newer Bolt Vox models support over-the-air antennas and come with a voice remote, so this is a good opportunity for existing TiVo users to drop cable and upgrade their hardware at the same time. Just make sure to follow the upgrade instructions on TiVo’s sale page to get the discount.

Thanks for reading!

Until next week,
Jared