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.
The annual cord cutter awards
Jared Newman | 
For all the gripes you might have about the state of streaming, this year still had some bright spots.
Looking back on 2025, we saw the debut of several new streaming services that deliver more choice and flexibility to cord cutters, along with some compelling new bundles for folks who can’t resist subscribing to lots of services simultaneously. This year also brought us some great new affordable streaming players and one excellent innovation in over-the-air TV.
As is custom around here, let’s rewind to 2025’s best developments in cord cutting, plus a handful that we’d rather forget.
Weekly rewind
Netflix buying HBO: Netflix plans to acquire Warner Bros., including its film and TV studios, HBO Max, and the HBO channel. The deal would not cover cable channels such as CNN and TNT (which Warner is spinning out into a separate company) or the Discovery+ streaming service. Netflix’s press release implies that it would eventually absorb HBO Max’s programming into its own catalog, but doesn’t explicitly say whether HBO Max would cease to exist separately.
It’s a huge deal, but with a huge caveat: Regulators still need to approve it, and while the Trump administration is more merger-friendly than the Biden one, it’s not going to settled anytime soon. The news just broke this morning, so I’ll have more thoughts next week.
Fubo vs. NBC: Since November 21st, NBC channels have been unavailable on Fubo due to a carriage dispute. Fubo says NBCUniversal wants a multi-year carriage deal for the cable networks that it plans to spin off into a separate company next year, including MSNOW, CNBC, and Syfy, and that it wants Fubo to carry non-sports channels in its new $56 per month Fubo Sports package. (That package currently doesn’t include any NBC channels.) Fubo also wants to sell Peacock through its subscription marketplace, which NBCU is refusing.
Fubo has already started issuing automatic $15 credits, and this morning it reduced the price of its Pro and Elite plans to $74 per month and $84 per month, respectively. (That’s before regional sports fees, which start at $13 per month.) This tells me that an end to the dispute isn’t happening anytime soon.
Walmart Onn 4K Plus review: Over at PCWorld, I finally reviewed Walmart’s Onn 4K Plus, the best $30 streaming player you can buy. It’s surprisingly speedy, loading apps faster than even the $50 Walmart Onn 4K Pro in my testing, and it supports both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio, which is rare at this price. The remote has lots of helpful buttons, and I like the Google TV software despite some heavy-handed home screen ads. If you want a cheap streaming player and aren’t dead-set on Roku or Fire TV, this is what I’d recommend instead.
Correction: A couple weeks ago, I wrote that Major League Baseball’s new rights deals would mark the end of Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV. That’s incorrect, as the league says Apple will keep streaming Friday games through 2028. Kicking myself for the oversight.
More catch-up
- Netflix quietly dropped Google Cast support except on Nest Hub devices, legacy Chromecast dongles, and some TVs from Vizio and Compal, so you can’t use your phone or tablet to launch a Netflix video on your TV. (Netflix stopped supporting Apple AirPlay in 2019.)
- C-SPAN arrives on YouTube TV, with Hulu + Live TV soon to follow. (This was first announced in September.)
- MS NOW, the channel formerly known as MSNBC, will get its own subscription next summer.
- Walmart’s Onn 4K Pro box gets Gemini AI features.
- You can now use Alexa+ to jump to any Prime Video scene on Fire TV devices.
- FanDuel Sports Network gets an app on Vizio TVs.
Save more money
This section of the newsletter has some affiliate links, which earn me a commission if you wind up buying or subscribing to something.
We’ve got one notable deal in the aftermath of Black Friday: If you buy a TiVo Stream 4K dongle, you’ll get a free year of Disney+, but only if you’re a new or former (not current) subscriber. The TiVo Stream 4K first came out in 2020 (here’s my review), so I wouldn’t recommend it on its own, but with Disney+ normally priced at $12 per month, this is a decent way to get it for a lot less. The offer runs through December 25.
A couple Black Friday deals that are still available:
- Starz: Still $12 for one year.
- Fox One and Fox Nation: $20 per month for six months or $200 for one year. Ends Jan. 4.
As always, I keep a full list of deals, bundles, and other discounts on my big list of streaming deals page.
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Thanks for reading!
Got questions? Let me know!
Until next week,
Jared