Sports-centric streaming TV service quietly removed its cheapest programming package this week, making its $65 a month package the standard fare for new customers.
The move was first spotted by streaming TV marketing blog The Streamable on Monday.
In early December, tech columnist Jared Newman shined a bright spotlight on Fubo TV’s $60 a month package, which the company didn’t prominently advertise. The cheaper package, which Fubo TV called “Standard,” offered 30 hours of cloud DVR storage space for recording movies and TV shows across more than 100 streaming channels.
In August, Fubo TV moved its customers on the “Standard” plan to a higher tier called “Family” after the company added channels from the Walt Disney Company, including ESPN, Disney and some local ABC feeds. The change brought an automatic $5 a month price increase, though customers could revert back to the cheaper package if they called the company and requested it. In addition to the price hike, Family upped the amount of cloud DVR storage space to 250 hours and allowed customers to use three devices to stream Fubo TV at a single time.
Now that option is no longer available: Current and new customers are being offered the Family package and a more-expensive Elite package to choose from. A cheaper, Spanish-language bundle remains available at $30 a month but lacks many of the top-tier general entertainment and news channels in the higher-priced Family tier.
Also on Monday, Fubo TV began offering customers the option to pay their bills in quarterly installments instead of monthly. The quarterly plan is the same as the monthly Family plan but includes an upgrade from 250 hours of cloud DVR space to ,000 hours and allows for five simultaneous streams instead of three.
All About Sports
While it offers general entertainment, lifestyle, knowledge and news channels, Fubo TV ‘s primary focus is on sports entertainment.
The company specifically targets programming partners who offer a deep catalog of live sporting events. Those partners include Comcast (NBC Sports Network, Olympic Channel, Telemundo), Disney (ESPN, SEC Network), Fox Corporation (Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2), Al Jazeera Media Network (BeIN Sports), ViacomCBS (CBS Sports Network) and Univision.
“The company leads with the sports,” David Gandler, Fubo TV’s chief executive, said in a television interview in October. “We have over 50,000 sporting events on the platform. It’s a pay TV replacement service, but we obviously carry a ton of sports programming, including [regional sports networks].”
In November, Fubo TV said it had more than 455,000 paying subscribers and was growing every quarter. In addition to its sports programming, Fubo TV says it will soon launch a sports betting platform.
To keep customers paying when their favorite sports are out of season, Fubo TV offers a handful of general entertainment channels. It also allows subscribers to pay for Showtime, Starz and Epix right from the service for an additional fee.
