2023 has been a year of price hikes not just for cord cutting services but also cable TV networks. DIRECTV, Comcast, and Spectrum have all raised their prices in 2023 but so have streaming services.
Just this week, Hulu + Live TV announced a price hike joining YouTube TV and Fubo, who all raised their prices earlier this year. This resulted in a lot of pushback from cord cutters about the growing cost of TV and many posts online that cord cutters planned to cancel their live TV streaming service.
So we asked our readers if they planned to cancel their live TV streaming service to find out just how many really planned to cancel their live TV service. Hundreds of you took the time to answer the poll, and only 1% of you told us you planned to cancel your live TV streaming service.
According to the poll, 38% said they do not subscribe to any live TV service. 61% said they plan to keep their current live TV streaming service, including YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and Fubo.
This poll seems very much in line with what we are seeing from many cord cutting services. Recently Hulu + Live TV just reported that it lost about 2.5% of its subscribers in the 2nd quarter of 2023.
So why are so many cord cutters unwilling to give up their live TV service? For most, it seems to be sports. Right now, live TV services like Hulu are still one of the few ways cord cutters have to watch live sports on networks like ESPN.
Increasingly nonsports fans have left traditional TV services and focused on on-demand ones. Though that still leaves millions of cord cutters looking for a way to watch their favorite sports.
As long as sports remain locked to live TV services, most cord cutters will be happy to pay the cost to watch their favorite TV shows.
Now though, new options will soon be coming for sports fans who want to cut the cord. ESPN is reportedly working on a stand-alone streaming service. Also, Warner Bros. Discovery will reportedly start streaming sports live on Max.
The question now is will cord cutters reach a breaking point where sports is just not worth the price?