NBC just can’t seem to help but attack cord cutting. This week NBC published their 3rd anti-cord cutting story of the year all pushing the idea that cable TV is cheaper than cord cutting.
This time, NBC’s Sam Thielman released a story titled “The Disney+ rollout shows the streaming wars are over. Viewers lost.” As you would expect, many cord cutters pushed back on this idea. According to NBC you will need to pay $125 a month to be a cord cutter.
According to NBC if you want to cut the cord you need to get:
- Netflix
- Amazon Prime
- CBS All Access
- Hulu
- ESPN+
- Disney+
- HBO Max
- Peacock From NBC
- Home Internet
Here is our breakdown on what NBC got wrong about cord cutting with this story:
Issue #1 Overstating the Cost of Cord Cutting
One common tactic many anti-cord cutting stories use is to overstate the cost of cord cutting. For example, multiple studies have shown that cord cutters subscribe to four or fewer streaming services. Here, NBC lists 8 different services in a effort to push up the cost of TV.
Many of these stories push the idea that you will need every service. According to our readers and other research groups, most cord cutters subscribe to less than four streaming services. When we surveyed our readers, over 91% of them paid for four or fewer services and over 70% of them paid for three or fewer services.
Plus, NBC included internet as an exclusively cord cutting expense, pushing the idea the cable TV customers don’t need home internet.
Issue #2 Claiming Cable Will Give You All the Content You Want
I find this to be the biggest issue with this story. According to NBC, if you went back to cable TV’s basic package you would happily give up Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and more. Yet the cable TV package they use does not include most of the content from these services. For example the Disney Channel won’t give you the content that will stream on Disney+.
Would you really give up Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon? Most cable TV subscribers wouldn’t! Over half of all cable TV subscribers also pay for a streaming service like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. Now you have to add that cost on top of the cost of cable TV.
So, would you really give up Stranger Things and The Handmaid’s Tale to go back to cable? What about HBO and Starz? Leave us a comment and let us know.
Final Thoughts
The issue that really stood out to us here with the NBC story was the idea that cable TV only costs $107 a month but cord cutting costs $125 because you need internet. For that to be true, you would have to assume that most cable TV subscribers would decided not to have home internet if they have cable TV. According to Spectrum, the average cable TV and internet customer pays over $180 a month. So even if you accept that all of these services would be needed with cord cutting it would still save cable TV customers $55 a month compared to what the average Spectrum internet and TV customer pays.
Now you may be wondering why we didn’t include any live TV services in this post. In short, that is because NBC did not include any in their story. Also, even if you add a $50 YouTube TV cost on top of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, and Hulu not only would you get the live TV you want but you will also get a ton of content from Netflix, Disney+, WarnerMedia, and Hulu for less than cable TV.
Finally do your own research and decide if cord cutting is right for you. Don’t take my word for it and definitely don’t take the word of stories like this one from NBC to make your decision. We suggest you check out our Cord Cutting Beginners Guide to help you decide if cord cutting is right for you.
Did you know we have a YouTube Channel? Every week we have a live Cord Cutting Q&A, and weekly Cord Cutting recap shows exclusively on our YouTube Channel!