There is no bundle.
The ongoing discussion about the bundling of Streaming channels are inherently flawed by the use of nomenclature that really isn’t even an accurate description of what Cable television has been.
This last week, a new offering from Comcast, which owns Peacock, but makes most of its profits from selling internet access and Cable service - now also via the internet - discounts a combination of Peacock, Netflix, and AppleTV+ (all with ads) for $15 when purchased in combination with Comcast’s cable service (streaming or cable-wired) AND Xfinity internet service. The discount vs individual retail pricing is $8, though I suspect that most of that comes from AppleTV+’s $10 a month pricing. Peacock costs $6 a month and Netflix is $7.
That would be what you call a discounted premium package, which is nothing new at all. Right now, on my YouTubeTV account, I am offered “Max, Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, and STARZ” for $30 a month, a $6 discount from what they cost individually. You can also get STARZ and MGM+ for $12/mo, a $6 discount.
And let’s not forget that T-Mobile offers T-Mobile Netflix, AppleTV+, MLB.tv, and Hulu for free. Verizon offers the Disney Bundle for free. And AT&T offers MAX (without ads) as a free part of its unlimited packages.
I do expect real bundling to happen in time. But only after the pieces of the Streaming puzzle become a lot more stable.
An actual domestic Streaming bundle would be some variation on:
A Virtual Cable package
Netflix
MAX
Amazon Prime
Disney+/Hulu
Paramount+
Peacock
With Ads - $100/month
Without Ads - $150/month (maybe more)
Add the not yet existent ESPN standalone for $35/mo (can’t buy without ads… or partially without ads for $45/mo
The Virtual Cable package, whoever supplies it, would have to be priced at about $40 at retail for this to work. This would require a major reconsideration of the Cable model, which I believe will become required sometime in the next decade. The idea of Cable, except for a small percentage who don’t have good internet access in another 5 years or longer, will not be able to survive pricing at 3x or more the cost of individual streamers. But at a lower price, which would require content companies to get a lot less or even nothing to have platforms driven by ads, the idea of cable (virtual or by coaxial cable) could live on forever.
The media is hyped up like we’re on crystal meth, jonzing for The Answer to it all. So we keep leaping at false answers, like this Comcast discount package of the 3-party “If you don’t have any access, here are 3 streamers that will give you a lot of sports” package, which is extremely marginal, targeting fewer than 10 million subs in whole.
Look at the real landmarks.
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