Why streaming needs subscription bundles

Watching your favorite shows online is getting very, very expensive — but there’s a solution, courtesy of the cable giants of yore

Should streaming companies offer subscription bundles?
(Image credit: iStock)

For about a decade now, there's been a lot of talk in the media about cord-cutters: those folks who've given up on cable and satellite TV, and instead get their television mostly from the internet. Thanks to ad-supported network websites and apps — supplemented by behemoth subscription streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon — cord-cutters have been able to see most of the TV that everyone's talking about, without having to pay the cable/satellite premium for channels they never watch.

But the golden age of cord-cutting may be coming to an end, as more and more media companies look to move consumers away from the expectation that they can get anything for free. Rather than streaming new shows for nothing on their own sites — or licensing their catalogues to Netflix or its competitors — rights-holders to TV series and movies are inclined today to use what they own to anchor new video-on-demand outlets.

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Noel Murray

Noel Murray is a freelance writer, living in Arkansas with his wife and two kids. He was one of the co-founders of the late, lamented movie/culture website The Dissolve, and his articles about film, TV, music, and comics currently appear regularly in The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, Vulture, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.