Last week, Disney announced price increases in October for all of its streaming services. This means that Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus will increase their prices starting October 17, as will Hulu Live TV.
That last component might have gone unnoticed by many other people when they were faced with the surprise that almost every single Disney streaming service and package increased in value (only Disney Duo Premium still has the same value). But Hulu Live TV is one of the most productive opportunities for cabling, and its value may be significant enough to knock it off the list.
If you watch our YouTube TV vs. Hulu Live TV showdown, you’ll see that the setups are almost identical, but each has a clear advantage.
For YouTube TV, that merit lies in its sports functions. Between catching up on key games, multi-viewing, and $100 off the NFL Sunday Ticket, it’s a no-brainer to give you our 2024 Tom’s Guide Award for Best Sports Streaming Service.
But Hulu + Live TV offers its subscribers a free Disney Bundle Trio Basic, valued at $17 per month. With this plan, you get Disney Plus with ads, Hulu with ads, and ESPN Plus, which has plenty of live TV shows, movies, and sports, in addition to what you get with 95+ live TV channels from Hulu + Live TV. For many people, this is why signing up for Hulu + Live TV is enough.
But now, that explanation of why to subscribe is far less convincing, which could take away Hulu’s merit over YouTube TV.
Starting October 17, Hulu + Live TV will charge $82. 99 per month for its basic ad-supported package. That’s $10 more than YouTube TV, which costs $72. 99 and offers a limited-time discounted rate to new subscribers. Since you can sign up for the Disney Duo Basic plan (Disney Plus and Hulu with ads) for just $10. 99, it’ll only charge you 99 cents more per month to get YouTube TV, Disney Plus, and Hulu instead of Hulu+ Live TV. Disney. Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus.
As you can see from the table above, Hulu Live TV now has just two advantages: It’s 99 cents less expensive and it has ESPN Plus. But YouTube TV still offers subscribers a much greater sports viewing experience, and now you’re only spending a little less than a dollar more per month to get all the screens and videos that Disney Plus and Hulu have to offer.
The only thing missing is ESPN Plus, which, as you can see from our ESPN Plus review, is a streaming service you can live without.
I recently wrote that streaming value increases are here to stay, and I remain firmly behind them. But if Disney wants other people to sign up for Hulu + Live TV, it will have to oppose this price increase.
Or, at the very least, you have to reduce it to the $2-a-month increase it provides to most of your streaming. Array Disney might think the math adds up: 3 each increasing to $2 equals Hulu Live TV’s price increase of $6. – However, as I just stated, that’s obviously not the case.
Malcolm McMillan is a senior at Tom’s Guide and covers all the newest TV screens and streaming movies. That means news, analysis, recommendations, reviews, and much more for just about anything you can watch, adding sports!If this is visual on a screen, you can write about it. Previously, Malcolm worked at Tom’s Guide for over a year, focusing on synthetic intelligence (AI), audio-visual technology, and virtual reality headsets.
Before writing for Tom’s Guide, Malcolm worked as a fantasy football analyst for several sites and also briefly worked for Microsoft, promoting laptops, Xbox products, and even the ill-fated Windows Phone. He is passionate about video games and sports, although either of them causes him to yell at the television. He proudly sports quite a few tattoos, adding one from Arsenal, in honor of the team that makes him scream at the top of his lungs on television.
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