When I lived in Pennsylvania, I was fortunate enough to have Verizon Fios for my television and Internet. If you don’t have Fios and can get it, you don’t know what you’re missing. Crystal clear television and stable high-speed Internet. It was a bit pricey but totally worth it.
When I moved to Delmarva, I desperately wanted Fios but Verizon doesn’t offer it in my area. Bummer. Realizing that I was going to retire shortly I decided that I didn’t need the expense of cable TV and I could get my TV “over the air” with an antenna.
I bought a rather expensive amplified antenna expecting to get dozens of channels. To ensure I got the best signal I put the antenna on my third floor and got a special booster that would send the signal to TVs on the second and first floors.
I was so excited when I hooked up the antenna and turned on the TV. Well, I didn’t really expect to get 40 channels over the air, but I was disappointed to get 1 ½ channels. Yup, 1 ½. The “1” was the local Japanese language channel. Seriously. And the ½ was a very badly pixelated public broadcasting channel. Oof.
Back to the drawing board.
Instead of giving up and getting cable TV, I looked into streaming. Streaming today is pretty common but in 2017 streaming was still in its infancy.
I looked into streaming services. I tried a couple but wasn’t satisfied with either due to clunky interfaces or poor video quality.
Because I was trying to replicate cable TV with Internet streaming, I wanted to get live TV. This was a rarity back then.
Then I stumbled on Hulu. It was $50 per month for live TV with all my local channels. Just like cable TV. I gave it a try and liked it.
But what I didn’t like was the cost - $50 a month. Soon after, $50 became $55 which became $60 and kept going up. At one point I changed the service from “no ads” to “ads” to save $5 a month.
And my expense wasn’t just for Hulu. I’m paying $120 a month for gigabit internet. And $15 for Netflix, $7 for Paramount+, $7 for ShowTime, $14 for Amazon Prime (admittedly the video piece is just a piece of that), and $6 for Peacock. That’s about $240 per month including Hulu.
I groused but kept paying. Until now. I received an email from Hulu telling me that my subscription was going from $70 per month to $77. That broke me.
Last week I downgraded to the standard Hulu at $8 a month. I’m determined that I can do without live TV. If I need to see Eagles football on a Sunday, I can go to the VFW. And I can get local news online.
The Walt Disney Company (ticker DIS) owns a piece of Hulu. DIS has been in the news recently for losing and or writing off billions. They’re in some seriously troubled financial waters. Not that their survival is in question, but their financial performance sure is. I suspect that I am among tens of thousands of others who are cutting back on their Hulu subscriptions. It could possibly be that the additional revenue they derive from this current price increase will be offset by losses in subscribers.
We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m enjoying streaming Perry Mason, The Beverly Hillbillies and Matlock. Ya gotta love it.
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“Elections should be held on April 16th – the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.”
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Remember When You Accidentally Dropped That Dozen Eggs? Well, Here Are Some Very Expensive Fails!
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