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PlayStation Vue bumps price of live TV streaming up to $50

Sony's $5 price hike follows similar recent increases from competitors like YouTube TV, DirecTV Now and FuBo TV.

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Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
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Ty Pendlebury
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Another month, another cord-cutter price hike. Sony has increased the price of its live TV streaming service called PlayStation Vue by $5 per month. The new $50 price for the base package matches those of competitors including YouTube TV and DirecTV Now.

In a July 1 FAQ entry, Sony said that in light of "costs rising each year for content ... we have made the decision to raise the price of all of our multichannel plans by $5." The increase starts today for new customers, while existing customers will see the new price beginning on their next billing cycle on or after July 31, the company said.

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In March and April, DirecTV Now added HBO and went up by $10, while Fubo TV went up $10 and added a spate of channels, and so did YouTube TV. Vue's price hike today doesn't include any major new channels and currently PlayStation Vue has a weaker channel lineup than those three. A May report from eMarketer suggests that PS Vue trails behind the others in the $45-$50 price range in terms of subscribers: PS Vue reportedly has 800,000, YouTube TV has 1 million, DirecTV has 1.5 million and Hulu with Live TV apparently leads at 2 million.

Available on numerous TV and mobile devices (not just PlayStation consoles), PlayStation Vue offers a variety of packages with progressively larger channel bundles, called Access ($50/month), Core ($55), Elite ($65) and Ultra ($85). Although it failed to add any new major channels, Vue did institute a few changes to its channel lineup at the time of the price hike: 

  • Tennis Channel moved from Elite package to Core package
  • BeIN Sports added to Core package and above
  • BeIN Sports Español added to Sports Pack add-on
  • BeIN Sports Español added to Español Pack add-on
  • BabyFirst added to all multichannel packages
  • New CuriosityStream add-on

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