Cable bill on the rise? Here’s how to save on TV, internet costs and streaming
Your cable bill is likely going up again.
That has some people wanting to ditch traditional TV in favor of online streaming. But saving money by “cutting the cord” isn’t as easy as it used to be. Movies and shows are fragmented across a growing number of streaming services. Those providers have hiked their prices, too, as they face higher programming costs just like the Comcasts and Verizons of the world. And the potential savings gets slimmer if you want to watch live sports.
“The calculus of cord-cutting has changed dramatically over the last couple of years,” said James Willcox, who follows the TV industry for Consumer Reports. “Very few people are going to be completely served by a single service. And that means that you need to now go out and figure out how many services are going to provide what you want.”
There are still ways to save on your TV and internet bill, from switching internet providers to buying digital copies of your favorite shows. It just takes a lot more work, experts said.
Focus on your favorite shows
Before you flee pay TV, write down what shows you want to watch. You can search for a service that comes close to fulfilling that, then add additional streaming apps to fill in the gaps, Willcox said.
There was a time when viewers just needed Netflix, the market leader for video subscription streaming. Media firms licensed their content to Netflix, giving it a vast library of beloved TV shows.
Now, those companies are keeping content to drive subscriptions to their own streaming
services. That’s why “The Office,” the NBC sitcom that was once Netflix’s most-watched show, is now exclusively on Peacock, NBC’S streaming service.
One strategy is to subscribe to one app at a time. Sign up to watch the show you want, then cancel when you’re done. Unlike cable packages that can lock you into annual contracts, there are no cancellation fees for the major streaming services, experts said. This way, you are not simultaneously paying for several services that charge from $5 to $15 per month.
Another hack is to buy your favorite shows directly, skipping the monthly service altogether. Apple, Amazon Prime and others sell digital copies of entire seasons. They usually cost between $25 to $35, said Dwight Silverman, a longtime tech columnist for the Houston Chronicle. If you plan to watch 10 series a year, for example, that will cost about $300. Some people pay that much monthly
for cable, he noted.
“The point is you want to think about the shows you want to watch, not necessarily the services you want,” Silverman said.
The cost of streaming sports
If you want live sports, saving money is harder.
An antenna will get you many games on Fox, CBS, and NBC over the air for free. But an antenna won’t capture every professional team.
“Skinny bundles” will provide dozens of live channels streamed online. But the cost has risen in recent years, cutting into the savings you might get by ditching regular TV.
For example, Youtube TV’S monthly price has jumped from $40 per month in 2019 to $65 today. During the same period, fubotv raised itsrates from $45 to $65. Now Hulu + Live TV will charge $70, up from the $45 it billed in 2019.
These services have cited the same rising programming costs
that cable companies such as Comcast blame for its price hikes. And these new entrants are finding themselves in similar carriage fee disputes as legacy providers, too. Youtube TV recently warned customers it may lose access to Disneyowned channels if there’s no resolution.
“You may be getting a better selection of channels you actually want to watch,” Willcox of Consumer Reports said of live TV streaming providers. “But the cost savings aren’t going to be great. And at any given time, we’ve seen some of those services pull whole networks from their lineup.”
For example, Verizon Fios’s cheapest internet plan paired with Youtube TV costs $120 per month, including equipment fees and excluding promotions and taxes, according to its website.
Unlike cable, you can easily pause or cancel these subscriptions and resume them months later. So if you watch basketball in the winter but don’t care for baseball in the summer, cut your TV bill during those few months, Silverman said.
Negotiate a better deal
You can’t escape entirely from the cable company. You still need home internet service to stream movies and shows.
Most households probably need download speeds of at least 50 megabits per second, Willcox said. That will depend on what’s going on at home. That might not be enough bandwidth if two people simultaneously stream shows in 4K ultra-high definition, while a third person plays video games. Silverman suggested 150 mbps for a family of three.
One way to save on internet is to own your own router. Comcast and Verizon charge $14 and $15 per month, respectively, to rent one. If you buy one, you can recoup that cost within a year, Willcox said. Just make sure it is compatible with your internet service provider.
Then there’s the old-school way of lowering your bill: negotiating with your cable company, or switching providers to get new customer offers.
Comcast’s Xfinity, for example, recently started charging $99 per month for 200 mbps download speeds in the Philadelphia area, according to a rate card for Philadelphia and Delaware County. But new customers can get those same speeds for $30 per month for two years, according to a promotion on Xfinity’s website. That also includes a subscription to Peacock and a Flex streaming box that lets users access their streaming apps.
“People tend to think that they can’t negotiate,” Willcox said. “But it doesn’t cost you anything to try, and we’ve seen the majority of people actually be able to get something for it.”