Last week, fuboTV announced that they had officially dropped their lowest-priced tier making the entry point for the live TV streaming service $69.99 per month. What began as an “experiment” eventually led to the streamer eliminating its $64.99 per month Starter tier in favor of funneling both new and existing subscribers to its Pro plan for $5 more per month.
Not only will the Starter option no longer be available to consumers looking to begin service with fuboTV, but current customers who had previously been signed up for the base-level plan will see their service rolled into the Pro tier beginning on their next billing cycle after May 1, 2022.
Despite only being $5 cheaper per month, the Starter tier included a far more limited set of features, including just 250 hours of DVR storage compared to the Pro plan’s 1,000. Additionally, on the now sunset Starter plan, subscribers could only stream on three devices at once while Pro-level customers have access to up to 10 simultaneous streams.
fuboTV’s move to increase DVR storage and simultaneous streams across the board is seen as an effort to encourage subscribers to engage with — and rely on — the service more in the future. Data indicates that the more time that a customer invests in a platform, the less likely they are to unsubscribe.
In addition to the increased storage and streaming functionality, fuboTV has also announced that they have recently added channels to the Pro plan — possibly to smooth over any hard feelings from customers being forced to pay $5 more every month.
The streamer will now include [GAC Family] and the new Magnolia Network which had both previously only been available via the $7.99 per month Fubo Extra add-on. Also, depending on which version of the Fubo Starter plan they were signed up for (monthly or quarterly billing), customers can get additional sports content, including NBA TV, MLB Network, NHL Network, and more from the Sports Lite add-on as part of their new Pro plan as well.
While the Pro plan is now the least expensive, English-language option at $69.99 per month, it is not the only option that subscribers have. fuboTV also offers the Elite tier coming in at $79.99 and the Latino plan is $32.99, and new customers are eligible for free trials for both the Pro and Elite plans.
With its new $69.99 base price, the streamer is now on par with DIRECTV STREAM and Hulu with Live TV. The monthly base price for YouTube TV remains at $64.99 while Sling — which offers roughly half the number of channels as its competitors — starts at $35 per month.
As part of their 2021 Q4 earnings release, fuboTV reported that they added approximately 185,000 subscribers in the final quarter of 2021 to take their total to over 1.1 million. The company saw an increase of subscribers by 106% compared to the prior year, but added about 77,000 fewer subscribers than they did in the previous quarter.
Fubo
Fubo is a live TV streaming service with about 90 top channels that start at $79.99 per month. This plan includes local channels, 25 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs). In total, you should expect to pay about $91.99 per month, after adding in their RSN Fee. Fubo was previously known as “fuboTV.”