The difference: Long-term discounts --Buy 12 months for the cost of 10.5 months) Coupon codes --Paramount+ has a few great ones now Bundling --Something like AppleTV/Peacock or included with other things like Wal-Mart+ or your phone bill No monthly fees for equipment and no cost for infrastructure or techs.
The circumstances are completely different. Like the cable companies spent billions digging up streets taking on $billions in debt and of course the infrastructure cost was huge. But that's all covered on your cable bill. But I doubt many streaming services are profitable and at some point they're going to start needing to show their parent companies a profit.
Door #1 = Charge 500 million people just a few dollars to make profit. Door #2 = Charge 10 million people a higher rate to make that same profit. Anyone could have seen "a la carte is more expensive" a long time ago.
Pretty sure I wrote that same post 2-3 years ago. And sadly we are well into the era of price gouging. And TV costing just as much if not more than before.
I paid $79.99 last year because I forgot to turn off auto-renew after getting the $20 promo the year before. My fault, and $79.99 still felt like a decent deal with all the EPL, cycling and rugby I watch. But yes, that increase is massive. My plan annual plan expires Nov 23. I hit "Cancel My Plan" just to see what happened and I get an offer for an extra year at $59.99. Tempting because it's less than I'm paying right now, but I was honestly hoping the $20 or $25 offer would come back around Thanksgiving. What would you guys do, take the $59.99 offer now or chance the Thanksgiving offer that might or might not come?
Wait it out. I'm almost certain that the days of the $20 deal are gone, but I do expect a "deal of the year" around black Friday/cyber Monday. Probably no more than $49 And I agree. If you like the content Peacock has, it's a great value at less than $10 a month.
This. Wait it out. Even if it's $30/yr, it's better than $60. I'm surprised that I was able to get (essentially) three years of Peacock at $75. I'd love a discount for the AppleTV/Peacock (no commercials) bundle, but I doubt it'll happen.
https://tvanswerman.com/2025/11/12/why-peacock-fans-should-get-walmart-plus-now/ WalMart+ (WalMart's version of Amazon Prime) is now available for $49 for a year. I'd personally wait to see what Peacock does on their own. They usually do the "Year for $20" although a price increase might be expected.
My Peacock sub expires 11/26. Wondering what people are finding lately, i.e. Black Friday deal? (Last year it was the amazing $20/yr) And whether I can get the deal by just clicking "Cancel" or do I have to call up and haggle (as I've done in the past)
I wouldn't be surprised if the $20 price goes up a bit or is outright canceled. My 2023-24 Black Friday discount expired, I canceled and was able to sign up with the 2024-25 code a day or two later via the same account. From 2023-24, I was able to pay the difference to upgrade to commercial-free Peacock. It ended up at something $7 additional each month and the overall total was just under $100. In November 2024, I found a way to change my phone's settings to have a private DNS and was able to block Peacock ads on my phone. This changed sometime last summer and it's no longer appearing to be an option. If there's no discount for commercial-free, then I gotta pay the full price. In my case, it's nice to be able to watch NBC shows without commercials or any of the annoying popups "Catch The Voice next Tuesday" or the weather notifications, especially when I watch some NBC shows several weeks later. (I don't need to see a "Winter Storm Warning" if I'm watching in April or May.) I probably wouldn't mind as much if all the commercials were at the start of the shows, but obviously NBC doesn't like that. It'd be too easy to start the show, disappear for a few minutes and just "happen" to return with five seconds left in a 3:30 commercial slot.
Fubo loses NBCUniversal channels in latest carriage dispute https://awfulannouncing.com/fubo/loses-nbcuniversal-channels-carriage-dispute.html
The deal right now (at least for me) if you cancel is $59.99 a year on the plan with commercials. I'm starting to sweat it because if I cancel, don't take the deal, and there's no Black Friday special, my only option will be to re-subscribe at $109.99. I have until Monday to make a decision. I'm thinking if there's no Black Friday special announced by then, I'll just go ahead and take the $59.99 offer.
You could sign up for Walmart+ for $49 for the year, that offer expires on December 2nd. That includes your choice of Peacock or Paramount. If you want either service and a better deal doesn't come along, Walmart+ is a good option.
In another thread, TheJoeGreene posted: <<< 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. >>> From a quick Google search: <<< Crucially, Versant will not launch its own streaming service. Instead, it will rely on existing distribution methods, meaning consumers can continue to access the channels through their current pay TV providers like traditional cable, satellite, and live TV streaming services such as YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV. >>> That's a shame. The discussion in the other thread was about ditching regular TV providers for a combination of streaming services (Peacock, Paramount+, Disney/ESPN, etc.) My objection was that you would miss out on all the Premier League games shown on the USA Network. So it looks like unless things change, I'm going to still have to subscribe to a regular TV provider, which is a huge cost for 2-3 games a week (but they're usually good games).
Yeah the fragmentation is really customer unfriendly. NBC has been doing that for so so long. I wonder if YTTV would cost you less than "a regular TV provider". That's what I'm considering. I'm sure YTTV is not a fool-proof solution, from either cost or rights negotiation, but it seems like one of the best approaches?
Lots of speculation that YTTV will be releasing streamlined mini-packs in the coming months. No specific details, but reports of a Sports-centric bundle are out there. If they put out a bundle for under $50 with full ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT and sister networks, NBCSN and Versant sports, I'll be interested. It will be nice to have the YTTV interface without the $80+ pricetag.
Yeah that's my hope. Might be a bit of a stretch seeing as how the ESPN/Fox bundle is already $40 by itself. Maybe they can bundle Fox Sports without the Fox entertainment and news content, but I doubt Fox will go for that.
I think the saft bet is $50-60 *with* the Fox entertainment/news stuff. I'd also expect OTA Fox on there as well.
The question is how comprehensive the YTTV Sports bundle will be? I would seriously consider a package of - All of ESPN Unlimited [La Liga, Bundesliga, USL] - Fox, FS1, FS2, Fox Soccer + [World Cup, Euro] - NBCSN/Versant (including USA Network) [Some Premier League] - beIN Sports [Ligue 1] - NFL Network + RedZone - CBS, TNT, TBS, TruTV [March Madness, Roland Garros] - Tennis Channel - Golf Channel That plus Peacock [Rest of Premier League], Paramount+ [European Cups, Serie A] and AppleTV [MLS and F1] and I think I'd be all set. Am I missing something?
My Peacock Premium expires tomorrow (11/26) so one last time I tried looking for Black Friday deals and found nada. I even tried the trick of cancelling my sub to see if they gave me a "please don't go!" promo discount, but no they just cancelled my account. Then before I went down the rabbit hole of the $49 Walmart+ deal and whatever ripple effect that would have, I decided to open a Web Chat with the Peacock folks. It took 45-60 mins of chat, and a typically dim human agent on the other end, who kept saying there is nothing they can offer me, until at the very end they said "I can offer you an annual rate of $40 for Peacock Premium, would you like that?" I said "hell yes! that's what I was asking for 45 mins ago! " However apparently I need to cancel my active subscription today (again!) so that after my sub ends tomorrow (and doesn't auto-renew at $109), I can then login and apply the voucher they gave me for $40... supposedly. And I'm told the voucher is unique/one-time for me, otherwise I'd share it here. I don't know if they guy was just jerking my chain for 45 mins or that a Black Friday promo coincidentally just became available to him while we were talking (seems unlikely no?) but in the end I now see light at the end of the tunnel? p.s. The things we do to save a few bucks!
I *just* saw there's one starting on Friday...if this user is legit, it's $20/yr. In other words, the same as the past few years. https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:phxtnvotfvp6322ew3rlrvyl/post/3m6g4ixlg6c2i?ref_src=embed If people have AmEx cards, apparently there's a Peacock offer there. (Maybe @NorthBank can get a refund if this turns out to be true.)
The Peacock deal in my AmEx account is a $20 statement credit if I use the card to buy the $109 annual subscription before 12/26. Not nothing, but not amazing.
Wondering whether that $20/year promo might be for the barebone "Select" plan, normally priced at $7.99/month, $79.99/year, which is mostly NBC TV series and shows (no live sports, no Peacock originals). If it's for the "Premium" plan, it's a great deal given the recent price increase. Guess we'll find out on Friday.