Cable TV hits a fork in the road

A couple things happened over the past month that could lead to big changes in how TV bundling works:

• Charter landed new deals that will bring Max and Peacock to most Spectrum TV customers as part of a standard cable package. This follows similar arrangements to bundle other streaming services, including Disney+, Paramount+, and AMC+.
• DirecTV reached an agreement with Disney that will allow for smaller, genre-based channel bundles, which will also include access to Disney’s streaming services.

Both companies are blurring the line between traditional pay TV channels and streaming services, in that paying for the former will entitle you to some of the latter, but they’re doing so in different ways. While Charter is trying to build one all-encompassing TV bundle, DirecTV wants to break things down into bite-sized packages.

Spectrum’s big bundle

Charter’s new bundling strategy looks a lot like it did in cable’s heyday, aiming to encompass everything you might want to watch under one monthly subscription.

The difference now is that lots of shows have moved exclusively onto streaming services, including ones operated by major TV programmers. Charter and other TV providers feel short-changed by this arrangement, left to sell expensive bundles that are heavy on live sports and cable news, but lacking in original entertainment programming.

To correct this imbalance, Charter has been pushing to include more of those streaming services in its main TV packages. Spectrum TV Select Signature subscribers now have access to Disney+, Paramount+, and Vix Premium—all with ads—while Spectrum TV Select Plus customers get ESPN+ as well. (Max, Peacock, AMC+, and BET+ will be added later.)

While it’s packing in new streaming services, Charter isn’t trimming much fat from the core cable lineup. The company did drop some of Disney’s less-popular cable channels—among them Disney Junior, FXX, and Nat Geo Wild—but will still offer “NBCUniversal’s full portfolio” of broadcast and cable channels and “all of Paramount’s current cable networks.” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav also recently boasted of “no channels that were dropped” in its latest Charter deal.

All of which means that Spectrum’s regular TV pricing will continue to rise, even as it’s ostensibly adding streaming services at no extra charge. Spectrum has already raised rates twice this year—first in January, then again in July—and you can expect future price hikes on a regular basis.

Spectrum does now offer a skinnier $40-per-month package called TV Choice, which focuses on entertainment and cable news, but it’s missing core broadcast channels and doesn’t include any streaming freebies.

Meanwhile, Spectrum’s TV Select package costs $115 per month for existing customers, which is considerably more than live TV streaming services such as YouTube TV (which starts at $73 per month). Spectrum’s pitch is less about saving money and more about having all the major TV programmers’ content in one place under one bill, whether it’s on streaming or cable.

DirecTV’s genre-based gambit

Instead of aiming for one big bundle, DirecTV wants to split pay TV into smaller, more flexible packages.

Its new carriage deal with Disney allows it to offer three “genre-specific options” around entertainment, sports, and kids/family programming. Those buckets just so happen to line up with Disney’s three streaming services, so one can imagine DirecTV selling a general entertainment package with Hulu, a sports package with ESPN+, and a kids/family package with Disney+.

What happens next is a bit murky. DirecTV still has to convince other programmers to embrace smaller bundles, which may be tricky given that most of their streaming services include a mix of entertainment, sports, and kids programming. Splitting Disney’s streaming services across separate genre-based bundles makes sense, but how would that work for a service like Paramount+?

DirecTV sees its proposed acquisition of Dish Network as a way to gain leverage against programmers, as a larger entity could have an easier time pushing for more flexible packages. But it would also saddle the company with new debt and isn’t guaranteed to get regulatory approval. (The FCC blocked a previous proposed merger in 2002.)

DirecTV’s approach, in other words, is riskier than Spectrum’s, but if it works, it could meaningfully reduce the cost to access programming that still requires a pay TV package, mainly cable news and major live sporting events.

Just the beginning

The TV industry is very much interested in bundling right now, hoping that the perceived value of package deals will discourage people from cancelling their streaming services whenever prices rise or a beloved show gets the axe.

But this isn’t cable all over again. While some pay TV providers will combine a full buffet of cable channels with a large number of streaming services, others will emphasize more flexible packages for folks who don’t need access to everything.

As other pay TV providers renegotiate their own carriage deals, they’ll have to decide which of those paths they want to follow.

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