Adjust your streaming budget—DirectTV streams are about to get more expensive. The streaming service has announced that it will be increasing its prices in 2023. Find out when and how much you can expect to pay in the article below.
DirecTV Stream to raise subscription price
The era of streaming price hikes isn’t over yet — and DirecTV Stream is ahead, with subscription plans expected to increase on April 22, 2023. At the time of writing, DirecTV Stream has not released a statement on the price increase. However, customers report receiving an email from the streaming service announcing a price adjustment in late March 2023.
DirecTV Stream, formerly known as AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now, isn’t one of the big hitters in the media streaming space. According to Statista, the streaming service will have around 13.1 million subscribers by the fourth quarter of 2022. This doesn’t compare to the likes of Netflix, which has 231 million subscribers, and Amazon Prime Video, which has nearly 200 million subscribers.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a valuable streaming service. DirecTV Stream is one of the best legal streaming services with local channels. The fact that it’s a no-term or no-contract commitment service makes it particularly attractive to some streamers.
Why DirecTV Stream Will Raise Its Subscription Price
In a statement to Cord Cutter News, DirecTV Stream cited rising costs as the reason for its price hikes.
Several streaming services have increased subscription prices over the past year. Netflix will raise its prices in the US and Canada in 2022, while YouTube TV will become more expensive in 2023. In many cases, streamers claim that the price increase is necessary in order to continue offering quality content to users.
DirecTV Stream is getting more expensive
With DirecTV Stream prices set to increase in April 2023, you have time to decide whether or not you want to keep your package. Remember, downgrading is always an option if you’re on a more expensive plan. Alternatively, look into streaming services that offer ad-supported tiers, as they tend to be cheaper.
After years of complaining about how many ads we see on cable TV and looking to streaming as our own ad-free option, it seems like ad-supported tiers are on the rise in popularity. We’ve come full circle.
In fact, nearly all of our favorite streaming services now offer ad-supported tiers in an effort to offer content at low prices. As the streaming market becomes more and more fragmented and ads abound, some people see little difference between Internet-age platforms and older cable networks.
Why ad-supported tiers are so popular
The main reason why ad-supported tiers are so popular is that they are cheaper than the regular tiers. You watch ads but pay less, while the streaming platform makes a lot more money than you paid for the subscription.
While many prefer to watch their shows and movies without any interruption, others prefer to pay less.
As annoying as the ads may be, there are tons of streaming platforms nowadays, each offering their own collection of shows and movies that we want to watch. Subscribing to all of them can be quite expensive, so cutting costs whenever possible is the best option for many people.
There are also a lot of free video streaming services that rely entirely on advertising to survive. With millions of people using these services, it is clear that there is a market.
Some streaming services have ad-supported tiers, but we’ve focused on the seven biggest platforms out there. We’re going to take a look at each of these offers.
1. Netflix
We’re kicking off this list with Netflix because it’s the platform that gave us whiplash between “there will be no ad-supported tier” and “we’re launching an ad-supported tier” within weeks. As a way of countering the huge drop in numbers, Netflix has decided that there’s no harm in bringing out a cheaper plan while earning some cash from every ad that people watch.
Netflix’s Basic with Ads plan costs $6.99/month on Netflix, which is actually a good price when compared to the discounts offered by other services for their similar plans. The Netflix Standard plan, for comparison, costs $15.49/month. The video quality of the Basic with Ads plan is limited to 720p, which isn’t great in this day and age, but it’s acceptable. You can watch content on TVs, computers, and mobile devices, but you can’t download any content to watch offline.
However, what you should know about Netflix Basic with ads is that you can only watch content on one device at a time, so there won’t be any account sharing even within your own household. Plus, you have access to the entire Netflix library.
