Even Cable TV Giants Know That Consumers Prefer Streaming — But They’ve Got a Plan for That

With cable TV service in a state of cord-cutting freefall, two of the biggest players in the space are leaning into a new strategy to try and stop the bleeding.

Comcast and Charter Communications are the two biggest pay-TV companies in the U.S., and the two largest broadband providers. But with TV subscribers falling quarter by quarter and year by year, in the last week both have launched products to try and placate consumers grappling with the sticker shock of total cable packages, replete with sports channels and niche offerings.

Charter on Tuesday launched what it is calling Spectrum TV Stream, which will provide 90 streaming channels for $40 per month. A&E, AMC, CNN, Discovery, Disney Channel, Fox News, FX, Hallmark, and HGTV are among the offerings. The streaming offering will be available to Spectrum internet customers.

The company also rolled out Spectrum Stream Latino, which will cost $25 per month and feature 45 Spanish-language channels.

“We are focused on creating more flexible, lower-cost video options for our customers that include a bundle of channels they want to watch,” said Sharon Peters, executive VP and CMO for Charter, in a statement. “With Spectrum TV Stream and Stream Latino, our customers now have the option to choose high-value, internet-delivered streaming TV packages that include the most popular news and entertainment networks and Spanish-language programming.”

And Comcast announced a new series of products under brand “NOW,” including prepaid internet and mobile plans, as well as NOW TV, a $20 per-month skinny streaming bundle with some 40 channels (including Food Network, A&E, AMC and Hallmark Channel), as well as Peacock Premium.

While Comcast initially launched its lite streaming vMVPD last year, it now lives within this larger ecosystem of low-cost NOW plans.

“Consumers have told us they want low-cost, easy-to-use connectivity and entertainment options that deliver the same reliability and consistency of our leading Xfinity services,” said Dave Watson, president and CEO of connectivity and platforms for Comcast. “With NOW, we’ve developed a new product construct from the ground up to be simple and easy for anybody who wants Internet, mobile or TV on their own terms without sacrificing quality. It rounds out our product offering to provide something for every consumer segment of the market and plays to our strengths in superior network capabilities, WiFi and streaming.”

Both services are only available to current internet customers of the two cable companies.

The new skinny streaming packages come as cable TV continues to dwindle. According to Leichtman Research, the top cable TV companies lost more than 3.8 million subscribers in 2023, with Comcast alone losing more than two million, and Charter over one million.

Virtual MVPDs like YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV picked up some of that slack, adding nearly 1.9 million subscribers.

With consumers showing a preference for streaming as compared to linear, the cable companies — which are primarily in the broadband business anyway — are trying to give them what they want.

But there is still one piece missing from the puzzle: Live sports. To keep the prices low, the skinny bundles lack the sports channel that viewers know and love. And while Spectrum’s streaming bundle includes news channels, Comcast’s even lower-cost option does not.

While the Disney-Fox-Warner Bros. Discovery joint venture streaming service does not yet have a launch date or price, it is expected to cost more than $40 on its own, making it an unlikely complement to the offerings from Charter and Comcast.

With YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV in the $75 per month range, the cable companies are betting that they can entice reluctant cord-cutters or cord-nevers to give their skinny bundles a try at a more accessible price point.

At the very least it suggests that Comcast — which owns NBCUniversal — and Charter, which has been seeking aggressive terms with streaming benefits in its carriage deals, are willing to do some experimentation to keep the pay-TV business going as long as possible.