Streaming services now cost more than cable TV

The combined cost of popular streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus is now more expensive than traditional cable television, according to new analysis.

Recent price rises to all of the main streaming platforms for ad-free subscriptions have pushed the cost above the average cable TV package of $83 per month for the first time.

Calculations by the Financial Times found that a bundle of the top US streaming services – including Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Peacock – rose in price from $73 to $87 over the last year.

Some of the price rises of streaming services have been considerable, going way above the rate of inflation.

Netflix raised the price of its basic advertisement-free monthly subscription from $9.99 to $15.49, representing a 55 per cent increase.

Disney Plus saw an even bigger increase for its ad-free subscription price, nearly doubling from $7.99 per month to $13.99.

“From a business point of view, streaming was going to have to move in this way – the price point was going to have to go up,” David Rogers, a professor at Columbia Business School and expert in digital business, told the FT.

“This was accelerated by the fact that we no longer have cheap debt to flood the market with streaming content.”

These rising costs, combined with an increasingly fractured streaming ecosystem, have helped contribute to a major surge in online piracy over the last year.

Figures published earlier this year by research firm Muso revealed that the most popular form of piracy is websites that host free streams of films and TV series, which account for 80 per cent of all illegal content consumption.

Visits to these sites rose by nearly 9 per cent last year, with early data suggesting that this trend will continue into 2023.

Several illicit streaming sites offer similar functionality to the legitimate platforms like Netflix, however they typically do not have any restrictions on the content you can watch.

Security experts have warned, however, that such sites may pose a risk to visitors, while links shared on social media sites can often lead to fake versions of these illicit sites that seek to steal financial and other sensitive data.