fuboTV Raises Price by $5 Starting at $74.99 per Month, Replaces Ultra Plan with New Premier Plan
For the second time in eight months, live TV streaming service fuboTV has raised its monthly subscription rates. After eliminating the $64.99 per month Starter Plan in May 2022, Fubo unceremoniously increased its price by $5 again on Friday. The Pro plan has increased from $69.99 to $74.99 per month and the Elite plan has jumped from $79.99 to $84.99.
While the new rates are already live for new subscribers, a fuboTV spokesperson told The Streamable, that the price change will be applied to current subscribers starting in February. When they do, existing subscribers that had the Starter Plan last year, will have now seen a $10 per month price increase since May, while losing AMC and A+E Networks.
Another change unveiled on Friday is that the old Ultimate plan — which included SHOWTIME and the Sports Plus add-on — no longer exists. The option that ran $99.99 per month has instead been replaced by the Premier plan, which comes in at $94.99. It is essentially the same package of channels, just without Sports Plus, which runs $10.99 monthly à la carte. Unaffected by the changes is fuboTV’s Spanish-language Latino package, which remains untouched at $32.99.
While it might be a bit of a surprise to see a second price increase from a streaming service in such a short amount of time, Fubo CEO David Gandler has long talked about the fact that he thought there were opportunities for his company to increase its price point. In Nov. 2021, Gandler told CNBC “there’s room for us to be able to price up,” specifically because the service provides cord-cutters access to sports that they can’t get anywhere else other than cable.
But even more recently, earlier this week at the Citi 2023 Communications, Media & Entertainment Conference, Gandler said, “I think that on a relative basis, we have more pricing power because again, as we add more content, our customers are saying, ‘Wow, he’s giving us more, or they’re giving us more sports for our money.’”
One of the upcoming additions to the Fubo channel lineup that should make many customers happy will be the incorporation of the Bally Sports regional sports networks (RSNs). The in-market channels are expected to be added to the streamer's offerings this month, though no date has been announced for the launch.
Additionally, earlier this week, the streamer also announced that it was ending its carriage deal with AMC Networks, prompting some to speculate that the move could be part of an effort to bring back TNT, TBS, and other Warner Bros. Discovery channels to the service. Adding the Bally Sports RSNs and all of the NBA, NHL, MLB, college basketball, and wrestling on the Turner channels would certainly bring the type of additive value that Gandler believes his sports-loving subscribers would appreciate.
Additionally, on Wednesday at the Citi conference, Fubo CFO John Janedis indicated that based on recent history, the company does not fear losing customers due to price increases.
“Our most recent price up was earlier in the spring,” Janedis said. “And I would tell you that the churn off of that was below expectation.”
The elimination of the Starter plan in May was announced a month in advance so that customers had plenty of notice before their bills went up, however, this time around, Fubo opted not to provide warning to its subscribers. Will that lack of communication increase the amount of churn that the company sees from this round of price increases? Perhaps the answer to that question will be determined by what content additions fuboTV is able to offer in exchange for rate hikes.
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.”