Time to Cull Streaming Services

NOW IS THE TIME to reduce the number of streaming services in our home. I'm asking Mia (14) to edit this blog post as we run through and justify the services we currently use.

Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel. Now logo from our Samsung TV app.

NOW IS THE TIME to reduce the number of streaming services in our home. I'm asking Mia (14) to edit this blog post as we run through and justify the services we currently use.

Now gives us F1

Dylan (11) and I watch Formula 1 and some Champions League football that Sky TV licenses to Now. Those sport memberships cost us €39 every month. We also pay €15 monthly for Now entertainment. We started the entertainment subscription during COVID and saw Mare of Easttown along with a few other titles. Annual cost for Now is €648 and that is just too high. We have stopped Now after Ireland won its first rugby test match in New Zealand and we may restart it when Lewis Hamilton wins a grand prix race in 2022.

We pay €89.90 annually for Disney Plus. Disney+ is our ticket into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also gives us front row seats to Pixar films.

I'm asking Mia to explain the value of sharing Disney Plus with our imaginary family.

We get access to Prime Video through our eir account. If we had to pay for Prime Video, the charge would be €5.99 every month, nearly €72 annually. During our COVD lockdown, I watched several of the films in the screenshot below.

Netflix

We spend €20.99 for Netflix every month. That's €251 annually to see Netflix originals and releases from Lionsgate and Skydance Media. The trending films shown by Netflix are always interesting. Dylan watches The Floor is Lava when he cannot see digital television channels. Ruth supports cancelling Netflix. Mia's opinion: I want to keep Netflix even though it has a high yearly fee because it is one of the streaming services I use the most. I use it to watch a large variety of K-dramas (currently Vincenzo and Our Beloved Summer) as well as other series such as The Vampire Diaries. Netflix also offers a wide range of movies which I enjoy watching with my friends during sleepovers. 

I thoroughly enjoy the production values of Apple TV.

Shows like The Morning Show, Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and Slow Horses made me savor weekly releases. I'm interested in what Mia views through our Apple TV subscription. We need to carefully look at what we're paying because there's a strong possibility that we have two Apple TV accounts. We pay €4.99 to a topgold account and I think we pay the same amount monthly to my bgoldbach account. I set up the topgold account to allow access for our in-laws but they're not using the service so we should be able to delete that account and save €59.88 annually.

When we first got Paramount+ I binged on Yellowstone and set aside Wednesday evenings to watch Star Trek when it dropped into the playlist. When my in-laws visit, we toggle over to Alaska Air Accidents. Paramount+ costs us €7.99 monthly for an annual cost of €95.88.

Let's see what Mia thinks about cancelling Paramount Plus, then restarting it only when the in-laws visit.

Because I get no ads as a YouTube Premium subscriber, I will continue paying €11 a month to keep the service.

Spending more than €1000 annually on streaming

We're looking at a recession in 2023 along with increasingly high fuel costs. By cutting our streaming services in half, we would have funding in our bank account for half a tank of diesel every month. And with fewer distractions imposed by streaming television, we could enjoy more reading.

Mia and I will update this blog post as we ruthlessly reduce our subscriptions to streaming content.

[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative leadership for the Technological University of the Shannon. Most of the streaming services were used to support the remote teaching of film studies during the 2020-2021 COVID lockdown period.]