Cutting the Cord

Ramblings
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I really like their platform. It’s my favorite way ever to get “cable” TV. It’s simple, clean, easy and very very well featured.

I just hate the price hikes, and they junked the service up with dozens of channels I never watch which makes the price hikes even more frustrating.

I didn’t like losing the RSNs, but that was a feud with a company I do not personally like, so to some extent, I support them.

But I went through this crap already back when I signed up with them. We had Amazon Fire streaming devices and they were feuding with them, so I switched to Roku, which was supposed to be “agnostic” and therefore the best long term solution. Now I’m looking at being right back in the same predicament again.

And if any of what Roku is saying about them trying to force Rokus prices to be less competitive with chromecast… Yeah, I’m not okay with that.

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Sinclair should take the RSNs over the top like ESPN+. That’s the solution.

Right now I use ATT TV during baseball season for the Braves and YTTV during football season for NFL Redzone

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clt says Disney is gone from yttv

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yes, cut out at midnight last night. Hope they get it back before we play North Texas on 1/20

25

Getting tired of all this contractual crap.

1 Like
26

clt says you can get sling orange for $10 for the first month

27

clt agrees.

All espn shows were deleted as well

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I think it’s ridiculous that you can have an ESPN+ subscription and still not view anything on the live ESPN networks.

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clt says
Winning The Office GIF

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https://twitter.com/CordCuttersNews/status/1686339604683649024

My question is: will they offer an ESPN / ESPN+ bundle?

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If the service is month to month I’ll cancel it when football season is over every year.

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33

Yep, and they know that so I bet there will be a high monthly price / deep “discount” on an annual subscription.

The article talks about a target price of $30/mo for ESPN alone, though some others say it will only need to be $21/mo.

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clt doesnt understand this. you already get espn with yttv, and can add plus.

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Or get it with Hulu+Live TV, about $70/month including Disney.

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I have had my YTTV “suspended” all summer (saving me $72/mo). Not going to say that I haven’t missed it at all, but it does make me question how much I actually use it. Really it’s just for live sports and a couple of network shows (that aren’t filming now anyway).

So ESPN standalone might appeal to people who otherwise mainly only watch Netflix or whatever.

I think that ESPN and Fox sports going to standalone products might just single the end of the pendulum swing from traditional Cable to all these various streaming services. I suspect it will swing back afterwards, into some types of bundled services. It might not look like cable used to, but it’ll function a little like that. Just having a single guide to list all the live entertainment is a big deal.

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There are still people like my mom and grandparents that pay for ESPN through satellite or cable but never watch sports. As those people age out or cord cut ESPN will continue to get squeezed. I think TV packages will be smaller in the future as less money will be available. The population of sports fans isn’t growing enough to maintain the monster contracts. I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney spins off ESPN and they bankrupt out of some of their expensive TV deals.

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Anyone here try fubo TV?

I am about to drop YouTube TV. They raised their prices, then dropped MLB Network.

Looks like fubo has MLB Network and even has the Bally’s networks to watch Braves, Hornets, Canes etc.

39

I did a one week trial. I didn’t use it much so I don’t know how helpful my review would be.

All I can tell you is that I got a really weird ultra washed out effect trying to watch their 4k channels on my old 1080p plasma (that might be why). I never bothered trying it on one of my 4k TVs.

Their TV guide feature is focused much more on being a favorite channels list. It kinda steered me into setting it up that way. That would be great if it was just me watching it, but between me, my wife and my kids, we all have different viewing habits and therefore might as well have the entire guide. It was kind of annoying that I couldn’t just default to the full guide.

Other than that, it seemed good enough. Felt like it was missing some channels YTTV has, but also had some it didnt. I can’t remember which. Sure there is a table to show you somewhere. It was a hair slower to load channels than YTTV. But that’s probably some of Google’s doing since I also have GF.

It’s also not really any cheaper than YTTV (it’s probably more $). Neither is Hulu Live. I think we are stuck picking not by value, but instead by preferred channel lineup. They’re all pretty expensive now.

The thing I miss the most about not having any of them is that feeling of having live TV. Have had it my entire life and it feels weird to not be able to flip on the news, a game, or the newest episode of whatever show. But I think the younger generation doesn’t give a crap about that. They are all on-demand streamers, so I think outside of sports, live TV is a dinosaur.

Eventually I think all the streaming services like Paramount+, Peacock, Max, Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, etc are going to become “channels” in a new bundling service. There will be perhaps several (or just one) live “channels” for each service, running inside an aggregated live channel guide, and then all their on demand content under another tab, one for each of the services. Hopefully it’ll get you a slight discount on them. A lot of these standalone services are losing money left and right (cough cough Disney+), and that model cannot be sustained. Future is back to bundling.

Finally - whatever you do, don’t venture into Netflix’s games section, especially the mobile games. Or you might get hooked. Wish my kid hadnt showed me that.

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40

clt gotta have cnbc

Invest Stock Market GIF