Charter Communications’ September 2023 carriage deal with Disney often comes with the descriptor “landmark” — a moment when a pay TV operator finally pushed back against a powerful programmer, resisting carriage of smaller linear networks while gaining unprecedented access to popular subscription streaming platforms for its pay TV customers.
Consumers have had enough of bloated bundles and high monthly pay TV bills, Charter declared.
Maybe not so much. Last week, Charter and Disney announced an expansion to that 2023 agreement. Not only is Hulu with Ads joining Disney+ and the new DTC ESPN in the Spectrum Select pay TV bundle this summer, but so are linear channels including Disney Jr, Disney XD, Freeform, FXX, FXM, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and BabyTV. These were, for the most part, the same basic cable channels that Charter successfully resisted in the 2023 negotiations.
Then the other shoe dropped: Charter is raising monthly prices on Spectrum Select TV packages by $5 this month, as reported by Cord Cutter News and independently confirmed by StreamTV Insider. This is on top of a separate $3-a-month increase implemented earlier this year. Monthly prices of certain legacy Charter internet plans are also going up by $2 in July.
Reached by StreamTV Insider, a Charter spokesperson confirmed the price increases, but noted that Spectrum Internet customers can save by switching to Spectrum Mobile and/or adding Spectrum TV (the latter which rejoined the broader Charter-offered bundles last year).
Charter has positioned Spectrum Select as a bargain bundle, offering a base iteration that combines more than 150 linear channels with not only the major Disney SVODs (Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN), but also HBO Max, Paramount+ and Peacock, among others of its total 10 subscription streaming services to be offered. The cable company boasts that customers are getting access to more than $100 worth a month of ad-subsidized SVODs within pay TV packages.
And so far that positioning seems to be having an impact in the consumer market. With Charter once again actively marketing video, customer defections fell from 405,000 in the first quarter of 2024 to just 181,000 from January through March this year.
Combining a robust virtual pay TV platform featuring over 100 channels, like say YouTube TV ($82.99 a month) with Spectrum Select’s full bundle of basic SVODs, will set a consumer back nearly $200 a month.
Before the price increase, Spectrum Select Signature was promotionally priced at $95 per month for the first year and $115 after that first 12 months. But adding in taxes and fees, the bargain doesn’t become quite as apparent.
And now, Charter’s “landmark” triumph doesn’t look so decisive, either. Speaking to Ken Ziffren at the UCLA Entertainment Symposium last week, an event covered by Next TMT, Disney Entertainment Co-Chair Dana Walden was congratulated by the legendary Hollywood lawyer for “getting 100%” from the Charter deal, and “getting it less expensively than others may have thought.”
She simply responded, “You said it.”
Article updated to remove an earlier inaccurate reference to "contract obligations" related to Charter's pay TV packages . Charter does not have contracts.
Further updated to replace the word 'spikes' with 'bumps' in headline to more appropriately reflect the nature of the $5 per month price increase.