2025's first streaming price hike will come courtesy of YouTube TV and I'm concerned which service is next

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YouTube TV's standard subscription is now 14% more expensive
The increase already applies to new subscribers
Existing subscriptions will see the price go up on January 13, 2025

If there's one thing we've learnt the hard way, it's that streaming prices keep going up – and by way more than inflation. And while 2025 isn't even here yet, the first big price hike of the year has just been announced and will kick in before the first fortnight of 2025 is over.

The streamer is YouTube, the service is YouTube TV, and the price hike is a whopping 14% increase on the current subscription price. To put that into context, the current US rate of inflation is 2.7%.

Not only that, but the hike has already happened: it kicked in for new subscribers yesterday, 12 December, raising the price of a basic subscription from $72.99 per month to $82.99 per month. For existing subscribers, the increase will take effect on January 13, 2025.

Why is YouTube putting its prices up?

According to YouTube, the inflation-busting price rise is because of "the rising cost of content" and investments in service quality that apparently can't be absorbed by the streamer, whose revenues cracked $50 billion this year for the first time as ad revenues increased 12% year on year. While Google reports YouTube revenues, it doesn't detail YouTube's costs, so we'll just have to take their word for it.

If the given reason is true and Google's not just cackling as it hikes its subscription fees ever higher, it's likely to set off an avalanche of increases for other streamers – and with some streaming price increases, such as Hulu's latest price hike and Paramount Plus's UK one only just taking effect, that's a pretty bleak prospect if they haven't already factored rising costs into their most recent increases. I hope they have. After all, Hulu's last increase put the price of its With Ads subscription up by 25%.

According to research firm GWI, the ever-increasing cost of streaming is starting to have an effect on many of us: 39% of customers who have canceled or are considering canceling subscriptions cite cost as the main reason with 32% blaming price increases, while 29% say that they're simply paying too much for too many services. However, the research does say that most users – three-quarters – aren't currently considering quitting their subscriptions.

The same research has found one possible solution to the price hikes: bundling. 49% of consumers say that they'd sign up for a streaming bundle if it could cut the costs, with Gen Z and millennial viewers the most keen. That won't protect you from price increases – Hulu's recent hike put its bundle prices up too – but it might soften the blow a little bit.

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Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.