Streaming services are getting more expensive — and experts say higher prices are here to stay
CBC
There are more options to stream TV shows, movies and music these days — from Netflix to Crave, Paramount+ to BritBox, and Rogers Sportsnet Now to Spotify.
But as those subscriptions add up, industry watchers point out that multiple options often come with a higher overall entertainment bill, with prices rising for services such as Disney+ and Spotify.
That means for many Canadians, the days of subscribing to one affordable streaming platform are gone — and they won't be coming back, experts say.
That's what it feels like for Star Trek fan Dyre Scheer-Peters in Calgary.
He previously subscribed to Bell Media's Crave to watch all of his favourite science fiction programs, but was recently faced with having to add an additional monthly subscription to Paramount+ to keep watching Star Trek.
Several of the series' programs migrated from the Bell-owned streaming service to a U.S. based competitor.
"It's all these extra purchases and such. It's becoming very annoying," said Scheer-Peters, who had to keep his Crave subscription to be able to watch other programming.
"Crave had a bunch of stuff, it had almost everything," he told CBC News. "It still has lots, but it has less than it used to, for the same price."
For example, in 2016, Bell's service launched, without advertisements, as CraveTV for $7.99 a month. It now costs $19.99 for the main Crave package, without advertisements.
Scheer-Peters has noticed. He says he now subscribes to multiple services totalling more than $100 each month in order to replace one or two services that used to include more programming at a lower price.
It's a far cry from 2010, when Netflix first launched streaming in Canada for less than $10 a month. Many Canadians got used to paying for a single account and sharing the password among many users.
The gradual increase in total costs for media consumers isn't a surprise, says John Buffone, vice president and media industry analyst at U.S.-based market research firm Circana.
"Inevitably prices were going to go up," said Buffone in an interview with CBC News from New York.
Experts including Buffone point out prices for streaming services stayed low even as costs rose.