Hey there! I’m Jared Newman, and this is Cord Cutter Weekly, my newsletter on how to save money on TV and make the most of streaming. Sign up here if someone shared this newsletter with you.

Replacing your expensive TV package with an antenna just got easier

Jared Newman   |   April 24, 2026

Although I mentioned Sling’s new Essentials package in last week’s newsletter, I decided to go into more detail for this week’s column.

For $20 per month, Essentials gives you all of ESPN’s cable channels, along with Disney Channel and a grab bag of rerun-centric entertainment channels. It’s $10 per month cheaper than ESPN Unlimited, ESPN’s own standalone streaming service, plus you can bundle Essentials with other Sling packages, including one that covers sports and news from Fox.

Essentials solves a problem that antenna users have faced for years: If you wanted extra cable channels like ESPN, you couldn’t get them without a big pay TV package that also included expensive local broadcast channels. That defeated the whole purpose of free over-the-air TV. It’s nice to see another option that cuts the local channels out.

Read the full column →

Weekly rewind

Update your old Tablo DVR now: Tablo has released an important firmware update for its legacy over-the-air DVRs, and you have to install it by May 25. Otherwise, you’ll lose access to subscription features and won’t be able to update the device in the future. The update refreshes the devices’ security credentials so Tablo can continue supporting them.

This update doesn’t apply to the puck-shaped fourth-generation Tablo or the HDMI models that connect directly to your TV. It also doesn’t change how legacy Tablo DVRs work, though it includes an option to run Tablo’s new apps alongside the old ones.

Essentially, if you have an old Tablo in a drawer and might want to use it again someday, make sure to grab the update by May 25. To install the update, open the Tablo app, head to Settings > About > Tablo Firmware, and make sure you’re running 2.2.58, 2.2.60, or higher.

Peacock on the Roku Channel: Roku will soon begin selling Peacock Premium Plus through its Premium Subscriptions marketplace. That means Roku will try to get you to subscribe through its own billing system and access the subscription exclusively through its platform and Roku Channel app.

Peacock Premium Plus is the same $17 per month through Roku as it is everywhere else, so there’s little upside to subscribing this way, other than a slightly more streamlined billing process. There’s no ad-supported option through Roku’s marketplace, and you won’t be able to access the subscription on non-Roku streaming devices such as Fire TV or Apple TV. (The Roku Channel app doesn’t support Premium Subscriptions on those devices.)

The alternative, as before, is to sign up directly through Peacock and then sign into the existing Peacock app on your Roku. I’m going to keep recommending that approach until the marketplaces provide actual savings.

More catch-up

Save more money

This part of the newsletter has some affiliate links, which earn me a commission if you wind up buying or subscribing to something.

Good news: It turns out that the $1 per month Paramount+ Premium promo codes I’ve been sharing here are still redeemable even if you’ve used them before. I discovered this myself after my previous subscription expired, and I was able to immediately sign up again with a new code.

The current promo code is N8C27L, and is for returning subscribers only. Sign into the Paramount+ website, pick the monthly Premium plan, then use the “Have a promo code?” button to add the coupon. Consider paying with a limited-use card (I use Privacy.com) with a $2 per month spending limit to avoid being auto-billed at full price.

Other notable deals:

  • Military/veteran discounts for MLB.TV are back. You have to sign up through MLB.com to get 35% off the listed price. (Thanks for the tip, Steve H.!)
  • Walmart still has the Roku Streaming Stick HD for $15.
  • Prepaying for three months of the aforementioned Sling Essentials plan will save you $5. Better than nothing, I guess.

Want to see all the streaming deals that I’m currently aware of? Here’s the big list of them.

Unclutter your digital photos

Earlier this week, I released an app for getting rid of all the unwanted photos that are eating up space on your computer.

Newmy’s Photo Cleaner scans any folder on your Windows PC or Apple silicon Mac and identifies the photos that look similar. That way, you can weed out the blurry photos, outtakes, and unedited copies that you never got around to deleting earlier. It’s a super-fast way to unclutter your photo collection, and it works entirely offline.

I’ve made this app available to my lovely Advisorator members at no extra charge. Join us for as little as $5 per month, and the app will be yours to keep forever even if you cancel (though I hope you’ll stick around for the in-depth tech advice I send out every Tuesday). Check out the download page to get started.

Thanks for reading!

That’s all for now. Got questions? Reply to this email and I’ll do my best to answer.

Until then,
Jared