Hulu price change notificaiton

I got my notice from Hulu on Tuesday. Prices are going up.

This was not a surprise. We talked about this last month, after all. And it is happening next month.

A report on Cord Cutters News mentioned that users were getting emails, so I certainly wasn't the only one.

Comparing their email to mine, it showed that the emails were specific to the plan the user has. I have the cheap plan -- because I'm cheap, I suppose -- and it mentions the price increase for my plan only.

The price of Hulu’s ad-supported plan will increase on October 10, 2022 to $7.99/month. The price adjustment will be reflected in your first billing cycle on or after October 10. Your payment method on file will be charged the new price unless you cancel before the start of your first billing cycle on or after October 10.*

As always, it’s easy to switch between our subscription plans and packages. Explore all of our plan options to find the one that best fits your viewing needs, or to cancel, visit your Account page.

We are always here to help. For any questions, please visit our Help Center for more information.

The Hulu Team

For users of the No Ads plan, those prices will be $15/month. Prices for Hulu+Live TV remain the same, unless I'm reading all this stuff wrong.

I'm actually in a pause, and my Hulu subscription won't resume until November. I get hit with the price increase then.

And that's a tip, by the way. Some services allow you to pause the subscription for a period of time. I'm in a pause at the moment for Hulu. That mean I won't get hit with the price increase until November. Of course, I'm not currently watching anything on Hulu, but I'm fine with that. In November, I'll begin catching up all the stuff I normally watch, and will then pause again as I await shows to build up episodes.

Nobody likes a price increase. I certainly don't. However, to me, even with the price hike, the $8/month plan (increasing from $7/month) is still a good deal and brings value to my Streaming Life.

Ad-supported Netflix sooner than later?

This totally got past me last week. An article in Variety says that Netflix has accelerated its timeline on launching its ad-supported tier.

In case you weren't aware, Netflix is launching an ad-supported tier in the next several months. Expectations are that it will be in the $7-10 range.

This follows a price increase earlier this year, which brought the monthly subscription prices to $10, $15.50, and the top tier is $20. The differences are as follows:

	Basic	Standard	Premium
Monthly cost* (United States Dollar)	$9.99	$15.49	$19.99
Number of screens you can watch on at the same time	1	2	4
Number of phones or tablets you can have downloads on	1	2	4
Unlimited movies, TV shows and mobile games	✓	✓	✓
Watch on your laptop, TV, phone and tablet	✓	✓	✓
HD available		✓	✓
Ultra HD available			✓

The final details on the ad-supported tier are not available, but Variety reports that Netflix is moving the launch date up.

In July, Netflix told investors that it was targeting the launch of the ad-supported plan “around the early part of 2023.” But now, Netflix’s ad-supported is set to go live Nov. 1 in multiple countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany, according to industry sources who have been briefed on the streamer’s plans. That would be a little over a month before Disney+ Basic, priced at $7.99/month, hits the market in the U.S.

If you're a Netflix subscriber, you may be able to save some money by moving to an ad-supported tier. I know that some people can't stand ads, so there are the high-priced plans for them. But for those wanting to save money in their Streaming Life, the Netflix ad-supported tier may be the thing to do.

 

When stations disappear

While my focus is usually streaming -- when I'm not off on a Linux computer or security phone tangent -- I occasionally talk about over the air antenna TV. I feel there is not enough emphasis on over the air TV.

That used to be the only way to pick up TV stations. Then cable happened, and the local stations got in on that. Today, some live streaming services -- to include YouTube TV, Hulu+Live TV, Fubo TV, DirecTV Stream, and others -- have local channels as part of the lineup.

However, that's not the only way to pick up these stations. An antenna, if you are able to put one up, or live close enough to the TV towers that a small indoor antenna will work, is a great way to watch local channels.

The thing is, there sometimes the channels disappear. They don't really, they just move. Not physically; the tower doesn't crawl away or anything. The stations will sometimes change frequency.

You see, there are two channels that today's digital signals use. One is the channel you call it, and the other is the channel it actually is.

For example, in Savannah, my local market, WSAV TV Channel 3 is actually broadcasting on channel 16. WTOC Channel 11 is actually broadcasting on channel 23. WTGS Fox 28 is on channel 26. WJCL TV 22 is on channel 22. Weirdos.

Seriously, of the four major network stations, three are on frequencies that do not match their actual frequencies.

Even then, they could still change to a different frequency, even if they changed before. There are reasons, and that could take all day. I'll just end with the fact that there are reasons.

So, what do you do? You have to scan the channels again. And that brings me to a post that Tablo posted recently.

When your local TV station makes a change like this, adds a new OTA subchannel, or re-arranges their current ATSC 1.0 broadcasts to enable new ATSC 3.0 channels, you'll need to run and save a new channel scan on your television and/or DVR to continue watching.

Even if you haven't had this happen to you, it's worth a read. It could happen in the future. And you don't want to lose any channels and experience frustrations in your Streaming Life, now do you?

Peacock stepping up

There are lots of little things I don't like about Peacock TV. Every bit of the problem is related to the user interface. Features that I don't like or want because they don't have them. But one thing that isn't a problem is the content. Good content can cause a person to overlook a lot of other issues.

Peacock TV has some really good content. Of course, the NBCUniversal library is huge and contains some really good stuff. So yeah, it's expected that Peacock would have good content.

Recently, though, they did something I didn't expect. I saw it and thought perhaps I wasn't seeing what I was seeing. But there it was. Jurassic World Dominion was streaming on Peacock.

My first thought was that it was the previous movie, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, but nope, this was the recent movie. As in the movie that was released in the USA less than 90 days ago and had nearly one billion dollars in box office receipts. That movie.

Right now, if you want to watch that movie, you can simply watch it on Peacock. You don't have to buy it. If you are an Xfinity Internet customer, you get Peacock for free. If not, it's $5/month. You could watch Jurassic World Dominion for 720 hours straight for $5.

Peacock has the movie for the next four months, before it moves to Amazon Prime Video for 10 months, back to Peacock for four more months, then on to Starz.

I've seen where films have been available for home rental while still in theaters, but this is available for watching on a high quality, low price streaming service. Peacock is doing its best to be a part of your Streaming Life. Moves like this help.

Older Disney movies

I regularly visit sever Websites that focus on streaming. I list many of these in the sidebar. One is The Streaming Advisor, and I saw a post there that got me really excited.

The post was entitled "How To Find Wonderful World Of Disney Movies On Disney+" and if you know me, you know that caught my eye.

I'm of the age where I used to watch Walt Disney's Wonder World of Color, which also went by other names over the years. The it was called the Wonderful World of Color when I started watching it, so that's how I always think of it.

I had previously gone to Disney+ during a time when I had an active Disney+ subscription (see "Streaming more content with fewer services" for more about my rotating subscriptions). I saw different categories for Disney owned movies, but I didn't find a grouping for the older movies that aired on Wonderful World of Color.

What I had to do was browse through the movies or search for a specific movie. I was disappointed. Then, a few days ago, I saw the post by Ryan Downey at The Streaming Advisor about how to find those movies. I was excited.

Turns out my excitement was all for naught. He hadn't discovered some trick to finding the movies, or posting about a new feature that Disney+ had implemented. Rather, he was lamenting the same thing that I'm saying. And he had to do the very things I was having to do.

He was addressing what you have to do to find the movies, not sharing some secret. There is no secret. There is no easy way to find those movies. He was explaining what you had to do:

For those looking for films from The Wonderful World of Disney series, you will have to either do a basic search for the title you are seeking or scan through the section simply labeled as Movies. From there the selections will be among the rest of the catalog via the A-Z sorting choice. Why Disney has not broken the movie into their own category considering it has a Disney Channel Movies section and more is a question above my pay grade.

And he is right. That's exactly what you have to do. He doesn't like it. I don't like it. And Disney seems to not care.

Oh, well. If I want those classic Disney films in my Streaming Life, I have to find them the hard way. But you know what? It's worth it. I just wish I didn't have to do it that way.