Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, and Max have each announced price hikes over the past five months.
Transcript:
I’m Conway Gittens reporting from the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s what we’re watching on TheStreet today.
Wall Street wrapped up its best week of the year as investors bet the economy is strong enough to avoid a recession, but weak enough to convince the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates. Investors will be hanging on to every word from Fed Chief Jerome Powell in the coming week. In addition, there will be new housing data and quarterly results from Lowe’s, Target and TJX, the parent of TJ Maxx.
In other news: If you feel like your various streaming media accounts are crimping your wallet – you’re right.
Media companies are hiking streaming subscription fees left and right. Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, and Max have each announced price hikes over the past five months. Netflix hasn’t raised prices so far this year – but it is dropping its cheapest ad-free subscription plan. AppleTV+ had a big price hike at the end of 2023.
Sure, it’s a dollar here and a dollar there – but those dollars add up in an inflation-weary world. Media execs say the price hikes are needed to pay for all that content that’s being created. The CFO at Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Max, said “For a decade in streaming, an enormously valuable amount of quality content has been given away well below fair market value. And I think that’s in the process of being corrected.”
But the real reason streaming prices are going up has to do with cord cutting. Traditional cable TV is losing viewers at a rapid pace, and that means less ad revenue flowing from advertisers to the media companies. Loss revenue has to be made up in some way, and for now, streaming is the media industry’s best bet.
That’ll do it for your Daily Briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m Conway Gittens with TheStreet.
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