• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 2, 2020

Netflix is raising its prices -- adding one dollar a month for its standard, most popular plan. The last time Netflix raise prices was in January 2019 -- also tacking on a dollar. What’s the message here?

TV Watch has the most popular Netflix option -- the offering of HDTV and multiple-screen access -- now for $13.99. Is anyone really going to drop it because of this? Nah. It’s a dollar.

Netflix left nothing to chance, testing the price hike previously in Canada. All this comes as Netflix, more or less, under-delivered on its subscribers gains recently -- somewhat expected, given the over-delivery of subscribers, globally and in the U.S, earlier this year, due to the pandemic.

Considering its efforts to ramp up even more original programming -- all to compete with legacy companies with new streaming services, such as Disney+, HBO Max and Peacock — this wasn’t much of surprise.

Perhaps the positive perception grows with Netflix.  When one opens the Netflix app of late, the platform seems to have no end of new programming -- virtually every day. That's a decent value proposition for consumers.

Veteran pay TV services -- with consistent cord-cutting -- may have a different scenario, where cable, satellite and telco packages -- now average anywhere from from $70 to $100 a month. What kind of price raises have they seen recently? Some of the same we have seen in recent years.

In July, AT&T’s DirecTV raised the prices of its Select, Choice, Xtra and Ultimate packages by $10 for new customers -- to $59.99, $69.99, $79.99 and $84.99 a month. Some streamers are headed in a similar direction. That same month, YouTube TV announced a price hike to $65 a month, from $50, and added eight new channels.

With the hike, YouTube TV is still at the low end of pay TV services. So perhaps it is not surprising, according to Google’s third-quarter results, that the service has grown to more than 3 million subscribers from 2 million earlier this year.

Not an apples-to-apples comparison, Netflix price hikes, as a independent SVOD TV programmer, seem, well, cheaper -- $1 to $13.99 for its standard services and $2 to $17.99 for its premium service, with 4K ability and more screen access.

Big question: Do these price numbers work well for Netflix’s marketing perception and/or earned media? It depends, as we know, on what shows we want to watch, or are on hiatus, new movies that are coming, or otherwise.

If this Netfilx price hike is too much for you, you can also try the basic ad-supported option of new NBCU steaming platform, Peacock: You’ll pay a grand total of: $0. If Peacock were raise prices to $1, it would be a 100% hike.