This week on TechHive: Hunting for TV deals in the age of cord cutting
In the heyday of cable TV, haggling for a discount was a simultaneously dreadful and satisfying experience.
Every year or two, your cable or satellite TV provider would quietly raise prices as promotion rates expired, at which point you’d need to engage in the art of negotiation. With the right soft skills, you could talk your way into a lower price for at least a while longer.
Cord-cutting has largely killed that tradition. The pay TV bundle is far less profitable than it once was, so cable and satellite providers have become much more resistant to lowering their rates. Next time you complain that your TV bill is too high, you might be told to take it or leave it.
The upside is that streaming TV has created a new system for deals and discounts, letting you enjoy a wide range of services for less than the list price. It just happens to be more automated than the system it’s replacing. Read the full column on TechHive.
Weekly rewind
Apple TV+ offers dry up: Starting July 1, Apple will no longer give away a year of Apple TV+ when you buy one of the company’s devices, Macrumors reports. Instead, you’ll get a free trial for three months, similar to what Apple offers for other services like Apple Music and Apple Arcade.
As a reminder, July 1 is also when Apple will finally start charging for TV+ after extending its yearlong free trials on two previous occasions. If your trial started in July 2020 or earlier, that means you’ll soon be auto-billed $5 per month or $50 per year unless you cancel. To check on your subscription, head to iOS Settings, tap on your name, then select Subscriptions, or just click on this link.
Goodbye, binge TV? Over at Axios, Sara Fischer has some interesting stats on the rise of weekly episode releases on streaming services. Over the past four years, the number of shows coming out once per week has increased while full-season releases have decreased, and those weekly shows are becoming more in-demand by viewers. Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Peacock have all embraced a slow drip for their biggest shows, leaving Netflix as the biggest defender of binge viewing (though it has dabbled in weekly releases for reality TV.)
Streaming services say they’re trying to recapture “water cooler moments” with weekly releases, but of course they’re also trying to stop people from signing up for a month of service, binge-watching the entire season of a hit show, and then immediately canceling. While you can always just wait until a season is almost over to execute that strategy, you’d miss the chance to talk about the latest developments online or with friends as they happen.
In other words, the streamers are betting that the culture surrounding their shows has more value than the shows themselves. For franchises with huge fandoms around them, like Star Wars and Marvel, they’re probably right.
The great YouTube TV device giveaway: If you subscribe to YouTube TV, check your email—including spam and promotions folders—for a potentially free streaming device. As 9to5Google reports, Google’s been offering at least some subscribers a free TiVo Stream 4K or Chromecast with Google TV.
The impetus appears to be Google’s ongoing carriage dispute with Roku, which has left the YouTube TV app unavailable to download on Roku players. (For now, the regular YouTube app provides a workaround.) Google has previously said that it was looking to secure free streaming devices for affected subscribers, and while its giveaway emails don’t mention Roku by name, they do say the freebies help “ensure our loyal YouTube TV members have a great watch experience.”
It’s still unclear how Google is targeting these offers or how many subscribers are receiving them. But if you do get a chance to claim a free streaming device, you might as well take it.
More catch-up
- Here’s a thorough guide to watching live sports without cable.
- NBC decides to stream the rest of the Stanley Cup semifinals on Peacock Premium in addition to its cable channels.
- Which streaming service has the most kids content? Turns out it’s Paramount+.
- NBC will produce the Olympics in 4K HDR; it’s up to TV providers to support it.
- The Nvidia Shield TV is getting a home screen overhaul.
- Did you get an “Integration Test #1” email from HBO Max last night? You are not alone.
Save more money
Although I mentioned a few of these deals in my TechHive column this week, here’s a quick summary for those who don’t click:
- Paramount+ is once again offering a free month of service to new and returning subscribers, this time with the code MOVIES.
- Amazon is offering $1 per month subscriptions for two months to several services through its Channels marketplace, including Showtime, Epix, Discovery+, AMC+, and Starz.
- MLB TV is having a Father’s Day sale that cuts the price of a season-long subscription in half, to $53.
We’ve also got a few streaming device deals to be aware of:
- The Roku Express 4K+ is on sale for $30 from Amazon and other major retailers. That’s $10 off what I think is the best budget streamer for most people.
- Amazon’s also taking $9 off the Apple TV 4K, which is a great high-end option. That brings the price to $170.
- This deal isn’t available yet, but Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K will cost just $25 on Prime Day(s), which runs from June 21 to June 22.
Thanks for reading!
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Until next week,
Jared