Are you ready to pay more for Bluey? Disney thinks so. The company has announced it’s raising prices for a bunch of its subscription tiers just a year after the last hike. This reveal of the new streaming tax also comes just a day after the company announced Jimmy Kimmel would be back on the air, sorta, following calls for a boycott of all Disney products after his late-night show was indefinitely pulled.
According to Vulture, the new prices start a month from today on October 23. At that point, four of Disney’s subscription tiers will go up in price with the largest increase a whopping 20 percent. Here are the new prices:
- Disney+ and Hulu Bundle (with ads) – $13 a month (was $11)
- Disney+ Premium (no ads) – $19 a month (was $16)
- Disney+ (with ads) – $12 a month (was $10)
- Hulu + Live TV (with ads) – $90 a month (was $87)
Not all of the prices are going up. The Disney+ and Hulu Premium Bundle without ads will still be $20 a month and Hulu Premium without adds will still be $19. Still, I mean, $90 a month for live TV? In this economy? Why did any of us bother cutting the cord in the first place?
All entertainment is getting more expensive right now. The streaming wars might as well be called the pricing wars now, except that everyone’s racing to bump prices up instead of undercut one another. Disney’s price hikes come at a weird time, and not only because it just tossed the First Amendment in the trash to appease a sunsetting authoritarian president. There’s also just not a whole lot going on with the service right now outside of the ESPN bundle with fall sports. The next phase of the MCU is delayed, Star Wars is on a post-Andor hiatus until The Mandalorian and Grogu, and even season four of Bluey is nowhere in sight. A feature-length movie adaptation of the hit Australian dog cartoon isn’t due until 2027.
Simply put, if you only watch your local football team, whose games are free to watch on broadcast television, there’s simply never been a better time to ditch Disney+. Unless you are my son, who’s excited for Halloween and keeps hounding me to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas.
