Right, but you are in a tiny minority. For people watching movies, reality TV, news programs, soap operas, sit-coms, game shows, etc. I can't think of a single situation where it makes sense to FF by 10 seconds unless you're rewatching something. And even when it comes to watching sports, that's not how a vast majority of people watch them (they watch live, or occasionally delayed and use FF for commercials). And since the good ole' DVR is going away and streaming is taking over, I bet you are even in a increasingly smaller minority. Given that the DVR is far better on watching things speeded up, as you just described above. Trying to replicate that with streaming just leads to frustration and wasted time, imo.
I suspect my tiny majority is a little bigger than you think. A few others on this board seemed to like 10secs vs 30secs. But nevertheless, it’s probably true that I just have higher standards than other people who seem to put up with streaming deficiencies or steps backwards. To (re)put it simply, if the product designers and engineers would make it a goal to try to make streaming features at least as good as what DVR’s could do for decades, we’d all benefit. Even you.
Not to bring up a somewhat sore subject, but here goes... I just posted this in the NBC thread: "Now to finish on a more positive note, the Peacock app (for iOS) has this nice GUI feature of double tapping the right of the screen to do +10 secs and left side to do -10 secs. And if you double tap twice you get +20 secs. Brilliant! And immensely user-friendly." All streaming apps should provide this kind of feature! Also, I had another thought related to the 10 secs vs 30 secs debate. Give the user the option! Make a setting that allows the user to choose which works better to them: 10/20/30 secs. PC software apps (especially from companies like Microsoft) have given users control and choice for decades. Modern streaming apps could easily do likewise, with a minor amount of programming or overhead I suspect.
Price of Disney Plus, Hulu: Services Raising Prices in October 2025 https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/disney-plus-hulu-price-increases-october-2025-1236527241/ In addition, the price of ESPN Select (the service formerly known as ESPN+, which has a more limited content lineup than the recently launched ESPN Unlimited all-in app) will increase from $11.99 to $12.99 per month on Oct. 21. For now, the introductory price of the Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Unlimited bundle with ads will remain $29.99 per month (for the first 12 months).
I just noticed that my ESPN+ annual contract is up for renewal 10/2/25. Last October I paid $117/yr with tax. I just checked and the next renewal price would be $128/yr with tax. I have up to 1 week to find/decide a way to save $ rather than it auto-renewing. What advice do y'all have for me? Disney bundles have NOT been attractive. Because I've basically never had, nor needed Disney+. I get Hulu (with copious ads) for "free", through a family member. So really I'm only paying for ESPN+ p.s. I recently switched our Verizon Wireless plan to Unlimited and they're always trying to entice me to add a Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle, but I think that's at least $10/mo (and might go up if Disney raise their rates?) That'd work out to the same price as if I just let ESPN+ auto-renew, which would lock in that rate for a year without a price increase, which I can't be sure of with the VZW monthly bundle. p.p.s. This is one of they main reasons I really don't love the new fragmented streaming world. But let's not go there again right now.
If you're not tied to having cable/live streaming, then I would suggest doing the ESPN Unlimited & Fox One bundle that goes live on 10/2 (I think). That gives you everything ESPN and everything other than Fox Soccer Plus on the other end, for $39.99/mo. No announced annual deal for that yet.
Yeah, at the rate that prices are increasing in the streaming world, probably good to lock in a full year. That assumes though that you watch espn+ fairly consistently throughout all 12 months. Personally, I find that I do, with maybe some decrease usage in July and August but not enough to justify getting off the annual rate. But with Fox, for e.g., I'll only watch for one month every two years.
Sadly I just let my annual ESPN+ (ESPNselect) subscription auto-renew last week at $127 incl. tax. Ouch. But I didn't have time then to call them to try to haggle a lower price. And I was assuming that Disney/ESPN don't haggle the way CBS/Paramount have done for me in recent years. Correct assumption? p.s. In a week's time they're raising their rate again (it's like an annual thing now!! ) to $130 or in my state $138 incl.tax. Maybe by the time that rolls around the industry will have figured out some more customer-friendly pricing/bundles/aggregation?
The enshittification of ESPN continues. After adding an unskippable 15-30 second ad at the beginning of replays a few months ago, now they've added an unskippable 60 seconds of ads at halftime.
From what I've seen, the best for Paramount+ is the $39.99 for 14 months via SportsLine.com. Considering the previous prices were $30 or $35 back in early 2024, that price increase is most reasonable. Officially, it's a year, but if you cancel immediately, they'll give you two bonus months. (Using all the promos available, I'm at $1.94/mo for three years.) And yes, it's the *full* Paramount+ with local CBS, Showtime and (almost) no commercials in the archives. At the most, there'll be a promo for another Paramount show that is skippable after just a few seconds. Placement seems to be random, as it doesn't happen all the time.
This season ESPN picked up rights to the English Women's Super League (WSL) which I use to follow Arsenal Women. In recent years I've used different streaming platforms to do this. And they were never perfect, but this season seems to have regressed in production quality. Some of the things ESPN controls, like how many minutes before KO they start the feed, or how to run ads so as not to miss, clobber or truncate parts of the world feed production like halftime analysis/highlights (this seems distinctly worse than past years). And some things are out of their control, like the fact that the commentators are generally remote to the stadium and so are too often blind to what's going on in the stadium. Today was the most dramatic example of the latter I think I've ever seen. Arsenal scored a really important goal and the on-screen score was quickly updated to reflect that, which the commentators validated. And nearly a full 5 mins went by before suddenly that goal was chalked off and the on-screen score was put back to what it was 5 mins before. Both the graphics production team and the commentators (both I presume work for WSL world feed) were clueless about this, because they were evidently remote. And so, it's a case in point about how in the relentless pursuit of profits, the leagues and providers are damaging the quality of the presentation.
Admittedly, I really only watch MLS, USMNT and UEFA CL. I may catch random bits and pieces of ESPN soccer, but that's rare these days. Either way, showing small logos on the screen next to the score/time graphic seemed to be the best option.
Here's the Disney bundle for $3.25/mo for 12 months. The way I see it, you could use Disney+ for everything, including ESPN content. (Disney+ also includes the Hulu library.) The other two apps are largely redundant, IMO... especially since this offer doesn't include live TV. https://www.disneyplus.com/welcome/disney-hulu-espn-unlimited Edit: I had Black Friday on my mind!
That's what happens when you have Black Friday on your mind. I *definitely* misread that. And that deal really sucks because you really only need Disney+, as I said and have figured out. If I was starting from scratch, I'd go Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max and Paramount+. I'd need some connection to FanDuel too. Outside of being able to pause live news and sports channels, what's the use for a TV provider?
The problem, at least for people who follow the English Premier League, is you miss out an all the games carried by the USA Network. That's why I personally still subscribe to a "TV provider" (Spectrum in the past, YouTube TV right now, but it could also be Sling or Fubo depending on available deals). I would love for USA to be included in Peacock even if that entailed a price increase. Then I really wouldn't need a TV provider anymore.
To be fair, I did say "sports channels" although that's a bit vague there. But yeah, good point on USA. Hopefully this gets fixed with contract renewals... even if it's not a true simulcast, but whatever graphics and announcers (world feed?) Peacock uses. We're definitely in a weird time between TV providers and DTC and I feel like the companies are trying to figure out what's best (for them, of course).
There's also the part where USA is being spun off with other channels as "Versant" and there's no indication if the USA Sports part of that will be part of any streaming deal outside of the full live TV streamers like YTTV.
Was hoping for a Black Friday special for espn select, but I see the $129.99 annual price, which doesn't sound like a great deal. Anyone heard of anything better being offered? Meanwhile, Hulu and Disney for $4.99/month for 12 months is decent.
AFAIK, everything(*) is fully merged by now. I definitely see ESPN+ things on Disney+ (*)In terms of content. If I watch a show on Disney+ and try to find it on Hulu, my progess won't transfer. Based upon what I've read, the library will eventually transfer over to Disney+ so I use that for the library. I know I get ESPN Deportes via Disney+ and not via Hulu and I definitely see live La Liga games listed on Disney+.
Thanks. I see that they are merged in some way, but I'm also assuming there is a lot of ESPN content that I won't have access to since I am only paying $4.99/month. Good to see that ESPN FC is included in the cheap Disney-Hulu package I got. Not sure about La Liga - will check later today (doubt it).