Sony jumps on the rate hike bandwagon; raises PS Vue rates by $5

[Cal Jeffrey]

Facepalm: As competition increases, prices tend to go down. However, as cable networks continue infiltrating the streaming market, prices are going up. Instead of seeing better choices and lower prices, we are seeing the same bundles we saw when we were on cable. The streaming oligopoly has arrived.

Following directly on the heels of AT&T’s announcement of a rate increase to its DirecTV Now streaming service yesterday, Sony has just informed its PlayStation Vue users that it too will be hiking its subscription fees by $5 per month.

The company announced the rate increase Tuesday in a post on the PlayStation blog.

“We wanted to provide advance notice to our PlayStation Vue customers about an upcoming price change to PS Vue’s multi-channel plans. Starting July 24, 2018, the price for all PS Vue multi-channel plans – Access, Core, Elite, and Ultra – will increase by $5. Current subscribers will see this change reflected on their billing cycle after July 31, 2018. PS Vue’s add-ons and standalone channels will not be affected by this price change.”

PlayStation Vue is a television streaming service marketed to cord cutters. The service used to be viewable only on PlayStation 3 and 4 consoles, but thanks to apps recently released, the service can now be viewed on your computer, smart TV, and smartphone. Like DirecTV Now, it has four pricing tiers that offer different levels of “live” TV coverage.

Tier one is called “Access” and goes for $39.99 per month. It carries 57 networks including ABC, FX, CNN, ESPN, and others.

Tier two or “Core” is PS Vue’s sports package. It contains all the networks included in Access and adds sports channels such as NFL Network, NBA TV, MLB Network, and the like. That level costs $44.99 per month.

Tier three is “Elite,” which builds on the content of the two lower packages by adding “more news, family, and movie channels" to the $54.99 per month deal. Elite has movie channels like IFC and Epix Hits, but sadly lacks premium movie content.

For $74.99, Vue’s “Ultra” package bundles all three tiers and throws in premium channels HBO and Showtime. In total, the Ultra package contains over 90 networks.

Each of these selections will be increasing in price by $5 per month starting on July 24 for new customers. Existing customers will see the rate hike on their billing cycle after July 31.

I think these companies have missed the point of cord cutting. Tiered programming and frequent rate hikes are why we left cable.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/75348-sony-jumps-rate-hike-bandwagon-raise-ps-vue.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Everybody saw this coming. Amazon and Netflix were hiking their rates before cable companies came in, because media companies are gonna media, and charge as much as possible. Doesnt matter if they are new york magazines or silicon valley tech companies.

But then again, all this paid media is usually garbage. The best part is that you can subscribe for a month, watch everything you want, then stop paying for the other 11. They are still way cheaper then cable, and $10-15 a year, while pushing it, is a fair price for the quality of media on offer.

 

[GeforcerFX]

I laugh anytime someone says they are a cord cutter then use services like these. Same crap different wrapping is all they are.

 

[davislane1]

"They are charging more for the same or less" = literally every product and service there is. It's called inflation.

 

[Uncle Al]

So now the question is how long before we find yet another option different from streaming? At this rate the streamers will go the way of the cable companies in a shorter time ..... especially when they don't show vast improvements on content!

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

"They are charging more for the same or less" = literally every product and service there is. It's called inflation.

I have to respectfully disagree here. It's not just inflation. These hikes are in the range of 6-14%. The current inflation rate is 2.1%. In this particular instance this is the second rate hike for Vue in a year with the first being a similarly higher percentage than inflation.

But the blame is not on the carriers (Sony, YouTube, etc.) imo. This is the networks doing. The networks are feeling the pinch from those moving away from cable and are raising their prices for those that wanted to originally offer something similar to a la carte. Basically saying, "Look, restructure in tiers and we'll cut you a break on packages and you earn more from the tiered structure we implemented with cable."

Just a for instance. 20th Century Fox own at least 10 cable networks. Only 3 or at the most 4 are channels that most people want (Fox, Fox News, FX, and maybe FSN). The rest are throw-away channels offering specialized content to a niche group of people (FXX, FS1, FS2, etc). Fox bundles all that up for the carrier and says, "Here. Pay us X for all these crap channels and offer them in tiers as an 'added value.'"

So then the carrier offers us Fox in the basic package, but says if we want Fox News, we have to buy the next tier, but to make it look like a better deal they "throw in" Fox Business.

"Oh but what if I want those great FX movies?" Sorry that's on the next tier, but look you also get FXX too!

And so on. Eventually, the networks want streaming rates to get close to cable rates so that they are not looking at revenue shortfalls.

Yeah. It's a conspiracy I tell you! A conspiracy!

 

[ForgottenLegion]

"They are charging more for the same or less" = literally every product and service there is. It's called inflation.

If only wages went up in proportion.

 

[Camikazi]

"They are charging more for the same or less" = literally every product and service there is. It's called inflation.

If only wages went up in proportion.

Wouldn't matter, if wages went up that fast then services would go up even faster to keep the % about the same.

 

[SteveT]

"They are charging more for the same or less" = literally every product and service there is. It's called inflation.

Nope, it's called because they can or to see how far they can push, their hikes are and have been well above actual inflation numbers.

 

[pkroliko1]

Everybody saw this coming. Amazon and Netflix were hiking their rates before cable companies came in, because media companies are gonna media, and charge as much as possible. Doesnt matter if they are new york magazines or silicon valley tech companies.

But then again, all this paid media is usually garbage. The best part is that you can subscribe for a month, watch everything you want, then stop paying for the other 11. They are still way cheaper then cable, and $10-15 a year, while pushing it, is a fair price for the quality of media on offer.

I can even see more division in the market if disney pulls off having its own streaming service. More companies will definitely try to adopt that model if it works.

 

[pkroliko1]

"They are charging more for the same or less" = literally every product and service there is. It's called inflation.

its called greed.

 

[Impudicus]

Well this sure doesn't look like a good deal in any way...