Hulu’s live streaming TV service, known as Hulu Live, will get more expensive starting Dec. 21, with a stiff $5/month rate increase, bringing the cost of the 75+ channel ad-supported streaming and live TV package to $69.99 a month. Customers opting for ad-free Hulu streaming + Live TV will pay $75.99. The rate increase applies equally to new and existing customers.

The Disney-controlled service hopes to boost the perceived value of its streaming and live TV package by bundling in Disney-owned ESPN+ and Disney+, which will boost subscriber numbers for both services. Subscribers may balk, however, if they do not perceive much value from the two additional services they are now forced to pay for as part of an ongoing subscription. Subscribers might rebel and drop Hulu Live in favor of another streaming provider, while maintaining more affordable Hulu streaming-only plans ($6.99/mo for ad-supported, $12.99 for commercial-free).

Current Hulu Live subscribers that also have active subscriptions directly with Disney+ and ESPN+ can convert those paid subscriptions to credit towards the new Hulu Live bundle package. Your e-mail address must be the same for both services. If not, you can contact customer service for assistance.

Although cord-cutting continues to accelerate, the potential savings from switching to less-costly online packages of live channels has diminished as service providers boost prices. Hulu last raised its Live TV pricing by $10 a month in December 2020. YouTube TV has also seen steep rate increases, although both providers would argue their growing packages of channels offer better value to subscribers. Some cable and satellite operators have used these rate increases to their advantage, offering “win-back” discount promotions to former subscribers to return, with limited success. Spectrum has seen some growth offering streaming cable TV packages that bundle local channels and popular cable networks over wireless devices, smart TVs, and Roku for about $30-35 a month.

Most analysts are predicting this past year will be the worst yet for video customer losses, with nearly two million cable TV customers cutting the cord in 2019, up from 1.26 million in 2018. Business is even worse for satellite TV operators, which lost 1.2 million customers in 2018 and are expected to have shed another 3.25 million customers in 2019 — mostly because of mass customer defections at AT&T’s DirecTV. Altogether, over five million Americans are estimated to have cut the cord over the past year.

Investors have largely stopped worrying about video subscriber losses, and cable operators have boldly told Wall Street they have stopped chasing video customers threatening to cancel service, claiming many are no longer profitable enough to keep. Their key competitors, online streaming video services like Sling TV, AT&T TV Now, and Hulu with Live TV are also seeing subscriber gains slowing, most likely because of price increases. One analyst predicted these online cable TV replacements would add a combined 804,000 customers in 2019, less than half of the 2.3 million they added in 2018.

Cable companies seem unfazed, in part because of record-breaking gains they are expected to have made in internet and wireless customers in the last year. One analyst suggests that most of those gains are coming directly at the expense of phone companies.

Comcast and Charter are the two largest cable companies in the United States.

“Cable’s clear speed advantage in roughly half the U.S. is driving continued strong share performance,” Jayant told clients in a research note. Jayant expects some of the biggest gains will come from ex-DSL customers in Comcast and Charter Spectrum’s service areas.

Nationwide, cable operators likely added 3.1 million new broadband customers in 2019, up 15% over last year. Phone companies are predicted to have lost at least 402,000 internet customers, up from 342,000 in 2018. Most of those departing customers are not served by fiber broadband.

Both Comcast and Charter Spectrum are also successfully attracting a growing number of mobile customers, as is Altice USA. Charter and Comcast offer their broadband customers the option of signing up for wireless mobile service, powered by Verizon Wireless. Altice USA resells Sprint service at cut-rate prices.

Comcast is estimated to have added 778,000 wireless customers in 2019 and analysts predict that the company will add another 909,000 in 2020. Charter Spectrum is expected to have gained 923,000 wireless customers in 2019, with another 1.04 million likely to sign up in 2020. Altice USA’s deal with Sprint in its Cablevision/Optimum service area has already attracted about 80,000 customers, with 550,000 more likely to follow in 2020.

Hulu + Live TV is celebrating its successful signup of over an estimated 2.7 million customers with a major rate increase the company says reflects the service’s true value in the marketplace.

Most customers will see their subscription price increase by $10 a month, from $45 to $55 a month.

“Today, we’re letting customers know that the monthly base price of Hulu + Live TV will increase to $54.99, beginning December 18,” the company wrote in a blog post. “The new price better reflects the substantial value of Hulu + Live TV and allows us to continue offering all of the popular live news, sports and entertainment programming included in the plan.”

Craig Moffett, a chief analyst at MoffettNathanson, told readers of his Cord Cutting Monitor quarterly newsletter that Hulu + Live TV, which combines Hulu’s on demand plan with a selection of about 60 streaming live TV networks, is likely America’s largest cable TV replacement service, topping Sling TV’s estimated 2.686 million customers.

Moffett also reported that cord cutting is becoming a more costly proposition.

“Eighteen months ago, the cheapest video packages for vMVPDs were clustered around $30 to $35 per month,” Moffett wrote. “Eighteen months later, most are in the $45 to $50 per month range, an increase of roughly 50%.”

Charter Communications is contemplating tying piracy mitigation to renewed contracts with movie studios, cable networks, and other programmers in an effort to enforce a new authentication standard to stop password sharing on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and CBS All Access.

The cable company is trying to build an alliance that will enforce authentication principles on subscribers that share passwords to streaming services. Walt Disney is the only programmer to sign on thus far, agreeing to Charter’s piracy mitigation strategies for its Disney+ service in return for a renewed contract to distribute Disney programming on Spectrum cable systems.

Thomas Rutledge, Charter’s CEO, has spoken frequently about revenue erosion caused when consumers share their streaming accounts with friends and extended family members. Spectrum enforces geofencing on its subscribers, prohibiting access to certain streamed content outside of the home. Rutledge has not been specific about exactly what types of limitations would be imposed under the new strategy, but examples could include geofencing, periodic location checks, and limits on the number of devices authorized to view content.

“Ultimately our goal is that we can get an alliance of a large enough group of programmers and operators to protect the value of the content that people produce and the content that we distribute and we pay for,” Chris Winfrey, Charter’s chief financial officer, said last week at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2019 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills.

Winfrey severely criticized programmers that turn a blind eye to the practice of password sharing, claiming such practices are “insane.”

“To think that it doesn’t impact the way we get paid, it does,” Winfrey said. “And it conditions the entire marketplace to think that content should be devalued, it should be free, and that’s the way it is and I shouldn’t have to pay for it. It’s our firm belief that we’d be growing and growing significantly [if it wasn’t for password sharing].”

Reuters reports AT&T is exploring the possibility of leaving Puerto Rico, with a possible sale of its assets for around $3 billion.

AT&T is under pressure to reduce its large debt load after acquiring Time Warner (Entertainment) in 2018 for $85 billion, which left the telco with a total debt of $164 billion. CEO Randall Stephenson told shareholders he has made cutting debt at the company a major priority, resulting in job cuts, a sale of AT&T’s stake in Hulu for $1.43 billion, and letting go of WarnerMedia’s Hudson Yards offices in Manhattan for almost $2.2 billion.

AT&T has also indicated it is winding down its fiber broadband expansion program and is expecting to layoff additional workers as projects are finished around the country.

A complete exit from Puerto Rico would require a sale of AT&T’s wireless network, largely acquired after completing a buyout of Centennial Communications in 2009. AT&T has been earning about $300 million a year from its internet, TV, landline, and business service business on the island.

The company has hired a financial adviser to explore such a sale, but a source indicated AT&T may cancel its exit plans if it does not attract adequate bids. Potential acquirers include media companies and private equity firms. Buyers will face running the business in a compromised economy still recovering from 2017’s Hurricane Maria.