
Less than one month after announcing a pact with the Walt Disney Company to merge their respective pay TV businesses, Fubo has unveiled a price increase on its popular streaming TV plans.
Starting this month, Fubo customers on the “Essential” plan will have to fork over $85 per month to watch news, sports and entertainment channels from Disney, Fox Corporation, Comcast’s NBC Universal, Paramount Global and other programmers.
The Essential plan was introduced last year with the intention of saving Fubo customers money if they did not want access to one or more regional sports channels in their area, which are included in the Pro tier and above. Fubo charges as much as $16 per month extra for regional sports channels, and the only way to opt out of them is to purchase the Essential plan.
The retail price of both Essential and Pro is the same $85 per month, but the Pro plan will continue to charge a separate fee for access to regional sports programming, according to a comparison of prices on the Fubo website.
Fubo justified the price increase on its Essential plan as necessary to offset “rising costs from our programming partners” — in other words, to cover the cost that broadcasters and cable network programmers like Disney, Comcast, Fox and Paramount charge Fubo in exchange for the right to distribute and sell access to their channels.
The latest programming deal announced by Fubo occurred earlier this month, when the company said it renewed its distribution contract with Disney. The revelation was made the same day that Fubo and Disney said they would merge their pay TV businesses, with Disney owning a majority stake in the new venture that will operate Fubo and Hulu with Live TV. It wasn’t clear if the Disney deal was the reason why Fubo was now raising the price of the Essential plan, which includes Disney-owned channels like ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel and FX.
“We only make adjustments when necessary,” Fubo said on Friday. “We’re committed to keeping Fubo competitive while ensuring our subscribers have access to the channels, features and live events they enjoy.”
Fubo has tinkered with its packages and prices several times over the past few years, consolidating some add-on offerings into its programming tiers and adjusting the cost of its service accordingly.
In addition to broadcast and cable networks, Fubo offers more than 100 free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels that are included in all of its packages. Fubo also announced a new service called Fubo Free that unlocks just the FAST channels when a customer ends their subscription.
Only a few lapsed Fubo subscribers are eligible for the offer, a Fubo customer support representative told The Desk earlier this year, and those customers tend to be lapsed subscribers who paid for the service over a longer period of time. To date, Fubo still has no way for non-subscribers to access Fubo Free, though the company regularly touts its availability in programming announcements, financial earnings and corporate interviews.