Cord cutting glossary and a Discovery+ downgrade
This week on TechHive: The cord cutter’s glossary
Call it a gut instinct, but it seems like a lot of folks are resolving to cut the cable TV cord this year.
The people I’m increasingly talking to aren’t young techies, but longtime cable and satellite TV subscribers who’ve been pushed out by price hike after price hike. Especially for folks with fixed incomes, cord-cutting has become a necessity rather than a hobby.
But like so many other elements of technology, the field of cord-cutting is full of inscrutable acronyms, similar-sounding terminology, and nonsensical brand names. After covering this space for nearly a decade, it occurs to me that I’ve never bothered to define all of this jargon in one place.
Let’s rectify that oversight, then, with a glossary of terms that every current or future cord-cutter ought to know.
Read the full column on TechHive →
Advisorator: Last call for discounts!
In case you missed it, I’m having a belated new year’s sale for Advisorator, my weekly newsletter for tech advice.
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If you sign up by Monday, you’ll get your first year for $40, or your first three months for $9. Both plans include a four-week free trial, and cancellation is super easy.
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Weekly rewind
A Discovery+ downgrade: One of Discovery+’s best features was its lineup of round-the-clock marathon channels, letting you watch shows like Fixer Upper and Chopped without having to pick a specific episode.
Not anymore, though. Over the weekend, Discovery+ removed those channels from its service without much expanation. The actual content remains available, just not in linear form, and the service never offered a true mirror of Discovery’s cable channels to begin with. But as corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery prepares to merge the service with HBO Max, the point may ultimately be moot.
Trouble for Sinclair sports: The long-expected bankruptcy for Diamond Sports Group, Sinclair’s regional sports subsidiary, appears to be nigh. Bloomberg reports that the company will likely go through a debt restructuring over the next few months, which in turn could reshape local sports rights ownership in many markets.
The Bloomberg story also claims that Sinclair is at miminum looking to shake up its nascent streaming service, Bally Sports+. Alongside the current $20 per month subscription, Sinclair is weighing options to buy individual games or to tune in for the final few minutes. A previous report by Sports Business Journal said the company has considered selling packages of 10 games at a time.
This largely remains inside baseball for now, but it’s a story worth monitoring as the actual baseball season gets closer to a return. At present, most local MLB teams still require a big pay TV bundle to watch, and that’s a problem as more people reject TV bundles entirely.
More catch-up
- DirecTV pulls Newsmax over a carriage dispute.
- YouTube TV adds ION and Bounce.
- Vizio’s smart TV menu gets a refresh.
- Rumor mill: Samsung wants to bring its free streaming service to non-Samsung TVs.
Save more money
Peacock is currently having a sale on Peacock Premium subscriptions, offering a year for $30 instead of the usual $50.
While that doesn’t beat the service’s Black Friday deal ($1 per month for a year), it’s on par with what we see from the service on occasion throughout the year. Note that Peacock Premium still has ads, but provides a lot more content than the service’s free tier. The deal appears valid for both new and returning subscribers and runs through February 7.
There’s a new Paramount+ code as well. Use MATCH on the Paramount+ website to get a month free, with an option to add Showtime at no extra charge. (The old SERIEA code also still works.) See here for instructions.
For more ways to save, check the big list of streaming deals over at the Cord Cutter Weekly website.
Thanks for reading!
Once more for good measure: If you’re on the fence about an Advisorator subscription, now’s a great time to give it a try. I think you’ll love it, and it’s easy to cancel the free trial if you don’t.
Got cord cutting questions for me? Just reply to this email to get in touch.
Until next week,
Jared
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