I had such high hopes for tvOS 18, the Apple TV software update due out this fall, that I bought a new Apple TV 4K streaming box just to take advantage of it.

While tvOS 18 isn’t a major upgrade all around, it comes with a machine learning-powered dialog enhancer that could make a big impact in the Newman household. I’m often juggling the volume on our 2017 Apple TV 4K to avoid waking the kids after their bedtimes, so adding an extra oomph to dialogue without raising the overall volume sounds pretty appealing. The feature doesn’t work on pre-2021 Apple TVs—apparently they lack the computational muscle—so off to Best Buy I went for the latest model.

After setting up the box and installing the tvOS 18 public beta, I’m pleased with the upgrade. While the Enhance Dialogue feature is harder to enable in some apps than others, and its most powerful setting is needlessly buried, it does make a noticeable difference, especially when there’s lots of music or background noise in the mix.

Read the full column on TechHive →

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Weekly rewind

The Hulu-Disney-Max bundle: Disney and Warner are now selling the bundle of Disney+, Hulu, and Max that they started teasing a couple months ago. The trio costs $17 per month with ads or $30 per month without ads, and you can sign up through any of the services’ respective websites.

The companies claim that you’ll save up to 38% by bundling, but that’s bogus. Discounted Disney and Hulu bundles are already available without Max, so the real savings looks like this:

• With ads ($17/month): Saves $3 per month vs. Max ($10/month) and the Hulu/Disney+ “Duo” bundle ( $10/month).
• Without ads ($30/month): Saves $7 per month vs. Max ($17/month) and the Hulu/Disney+ “Duo” bundle ($20/month).

It’s still a decent discount if you want all three services year-round, though I’m surprised that the ad-supported tier isn’t more aggressive, and that there’s no way to tie in ESPN+.

The NBA’s new deal: The NBA has new partners in NBC and Amazon, which will split up roughly two-thirds of the league’s nationally-televised games starting in 2025. NBC will carry Sunday and Tuesday games, with Monday games going to Peacock, while Amazon will carry Thursday games when it’s not streaming Thursday Night Football. ESPN will get a smaller package of games for its cable channel and ABC, and all three will split playoff coverage until the finals, which stay on ABC. Matthew Keys has a more thorough breakdown.

The deal leaves out Warner Bros. Discovery, which previously carried NBA games on TNT (and, by extension, on Max’s B/R Sports add-on), though the company is threatening to fight the deal in some way. If everything stands, it puts a damper on the aforementioned Max-Hulu-Disney bundle and on Venu Sports, the forthcoming sports streaming venture between Warner, Disney, and Fox. It also further erodes traditional pay TV bundles, with standalone services such as Peacock and Amazon Prime becoming big parts of the NBA fan’s viewing diet.

MLB Network unbundles: The MLB Network is finally available without a big pay TV package. It’s now included with MLB TV at no extra charge, or on its own for $7 per month in a package with live game audio and the MLB’s “Big Inning” whip-around channel. It’s great news for folks with YouTube TV, which dropped the MLB Network in 2023.

Prime Video redesign: Amazon has a new Prime Video app whose most notable feature is a dedicated Prime Video tab. If you just want to see the content you’re paying for through Prime, without any subscription upsells, free ad-supported video, or on-demand purchase promos, you’ll want to navigate there.

More catch-up

• Rumor: The “Google TV Streamer” is a big set-top successor to the current Chromecasts.
• Another rumor: Apple may be cutting back programming budgets.
• Some of Peacock’s Olympics features look pretty neat. (Still not sure about AI Al Michaels though.)
• Looks like everyone who got Peacock just for that one exclusive NFL playoff game finally got around to cancelling.
• It seems like Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to undo much of what its merger did.

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Save more money

Verizon is bringing back NFL Sunday Ticket discounts for the 2024-2025 season, but figuring out what you can get is a little tricky. Here’s a rundown:

• New Verizon home internet customers get a free year of Sunday Ticket with 1 Gbps or higher Fios, 5G Home Plus, or LTE Home Plus plans.
• New Verizon mobile customers (or existing customers adding a new line) get a free year of Sunday Ticket on Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate plans when purchasing a select phone.
• Existing Verizon mobile customers get a free year of Sunday Ticket by upgrading to a new phone (with a three-year contract) on Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate.
• Other Verizon customers get $100 off Sunday Ticket through Verizon’s +play marketplace.

Note that the Verizon plans with free Sunday Ticket are more expensive than the ones that aren’t, and if you want a discounted phone, you’ll be locking yourself into Verizon for three years. Do the math on whether it’s worthwhile before signing up.

Other notable deals:

• Verizon home internet customers (new and existing) can save $10 per month on YouTube TV for a year.
• Philo: Half-off the first month with code DRAGCONLA2024.
• Paramount+: Get a free month using this link or the promo code OGGMPZR3YBW.
• Peacock promos are back. Use the code PEAT3VF7XV0 to take $30 off one year.
• My master list of deals is updated every Friday on the Cord Cutter Weekly website.

Thanks for reading!

Well that was certainly an action-packed week.

On top of it all, I had fun joining Rich DeMuro’s radio show on Saturady to talk about cord cutting strategies and my recently-launched Complete Guide to Cord Cutting. You can listen to my segment at the 1:28:30 mark. Thanks Rich!

Got cord cutting questions? Just reply to this email to get in touch.

Until next week,
Jared