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.
Fed up with “Streamflation?” Here’s what you can do.
Jared Newman | 
Obviously, we’re all annoyed with the growing costs of streaming TV.
Netflix just raised prices, with the Standard ad-free plan now up to $20 per month. Paramount+ hiked prices in January, while Disney and HBO Max raised rates last fall. A recent Bango survey found that 23% of Americans feel they’re spending more on subscriptions than they can afford.
That doesn’t mean you’re powerless to do anything about it. By looking in the right places and being a bit more judicious about spending, you can easily get streaming TV costs back down to manageable levels.
Weekly rewind
New Walmart streamers: Walmart is kind of, sort of releasing a couple of new Google TV streaming devices. As AFTVNews reports:
- Onn 4K Streaming Device: A $25 streaming stick with 4K HDR video and better performance than previous models.
- Onn 4K Pro: Walmart’s fastest streaming box, with wired ethernet, a built-in speaker for hands-free Gemini voice commands, and a backlit remote with finder functionality. It’s $10 more than the previous model at $60.
Walmart continues to release these in the strangest way possible, slowly trickling them out to physical stores with no official announcement and no online store pages. Meanwhile, Walmart seems to be struggling to stock existing streamers like the excellent Onn 4K Plus. The devices themselves tend to be great despite the amateurish release strategy, so hopefully they’ll be obtainable before long.
New Fire TV stick: Amazon, meanwhile, is releasing a new version of its $35 Fire TV Stick HD, due out on April 29. It’s faster than the previous model with a slimmer design, and Amazon says it should be able to draw power from the USB ports on most TVs instead of a wall outlet.
On the downside, it uses Amazon’s new Vega operating system, which has a much smaller app selection than the previous Android-based OS, and it doesn’t support sideloading apps from outside Amazon’s official storefront. (Janko Roettgers reports that Amazon is finished releasing Android-based Fire TV models.) The new Fire TV Stick also doesn’t ship with a power adapter or HDMI extender anymore.
I do appreciate the promised “Adaptive Display” setting that blows up text and menu elements so they’re easier for vision-impaired users to read, though it’s not going to be available at launch. Overall, the new model seems to be more about controlling Amazon’s costs than improving things for users.
Corrections: In last week’s newsletter, I misrepresented Comcast’s new streaming service bundles by indicating that you could choose between five different services. The actual options are a bit more limited. The breakdown looks like this:
- Peacock (w/ ads), Netflix (w/ ads), and Apple TV for $18/mo.
- Peacock (w/ads) and any other two of Netflix (w/ ads), HBO Max (w/ ads), Disney+/Hulu (w/ ads), or Apple TV for $22/mo.
- Peacock (w/ ads), Netflix (w/ ads), and any two of HBO Max (w/ ads), Disney+/Hulu (w/ ads), or Apple TV for $30/mo.
- All five of Peacock (w/ ads), Netflix (w/ ads), HBO Max (w/ ads), Disney+/Hulu (w/ ads), and Apple TV for $35/mo.
Also, my guide to YouTube TV’s new genre plans was missing a handful of channels, because YouTube’s own website omits them in the genre tabs for each plan. I went back through each channel list and to add what was missing.
Apologies for the errors. I blame post-vacation cobwebs.
More catch-up
- YouTube raises prices on all Premium plans. See the details in my Advisorator newsletter.
- Sony is taking some helpful antenna features away from existing Bravia TVs, including rich guide data and program information.
- FanDuel Sports Network continues to charge annual subscribers despite its imminent shutdown. Cancel if you haven’t already.
- Spectrum’s TV app is now live on Fire TV, Android TV, and Google TV devices. Ditch your cable boxes and save some extra money.
- Amazon Prime Video’s first NBA playoff stream had all kinds of problems.
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.
Nothing really new on the deal front this week. Here are the most notable offers:
- Two months of Paramount+ Premium for $1 per month with promo code N8C27L. Select returning subscribers only, will not work for new subscribers.
- YouTube TV’s Sports plan is still $55 per month for the first year.
- You can still get Apple TV free for 30 days via this link. For new and “qualified” returning subscribers.
For a full list of streaming deals, bundles, and freebies, head here.
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