The first article says customers will still have the ability to purchase standalone Hulu and standalone Disney. This makes it sound like the following. The new model does not sound more complicated than current to me.
Current – Options include Hulu alone, Disney alone, or Hulu+Disney Bundle
Future – Options include Hulu alone, Disney alone, or combined Hulu/Disney
The Paramount / HBO Max merger is far from a sure thing. It appears that all the news stories are based on the same original article, which references an unnamed person saying Ellison’s plan would absorb HBO Max content in to Paramount, if Paramount does end up purchasing WB (HBO Max is an asset of WB).
While I don’t see a big change in complexity of streaming services combinations on the horizon, I do agree that many people find current streaming complicated, with the large number of available streaming services and the shows they want to watch often being split across several different streaming services, and sometimes switching back and forth among different streaming services.
I’ve had a different reaction and have been happy to “cut the cord” and switch from cable to streaming. I like having the option to purchase limited content at a lower price from a single steaming service that has the particular shows that most interest me, rather than being forced to use the traditional cable model where one pays a tremendously larger price for the ability to flip through a large number of live channels, most of which have zero interest for me.
Rather than trying to navigate through subscribing to a large number of different streaming services and figure out which show is on which service, I rarely subscribe to more than 2 streaming services at a time. If I’ve caught up on the shows/movies that interest me from those 1-2 services, then I’ll rotate to a different one and catch up on my series on that service.
I’m currently paying $1/month for streaming. The $1/month is Hulu Black Friday 2024. I also get Peacock as part of my Instacart membership. The Instacart membership was $20/year and included a coupon valued at >$20 off first grocery order, so Peacock is essentially free. At other times over the past couple years I’ve also had subscriptions to Netflix, Paramount, Amazon, HBO Max, Apple, Starz, MGM (only for the show From), and Crunchyroll… catching up on new seasons of shows I watch on those services. I’ve never paid more than $6/month in total.