TV viewers could be forking out an extra £96 to maintain their subscriptions in 2025 after Disney+ and Paramount+ both hiked prices.
Disney’s crackdown on account sharing earlier this year is also set to feed into the increase.
In October, Disney raised the prices on its ad-free ‘Standard’ and ‘Premium’ plans by up to £24 a year.
That’s the equivalent of an extra £2 per month.
Netflix pushed a similar £24 annual hike onto consumers in 2021, and again in 2023.
The increase landed just weeks after the streaming service announced a Netflix-style crackdown on password sharing, which forced viewers to pay an extra £4.99 per month to share their account with someone outside of their household.
That is an extra £60 charge per year if you share your account
In November, Paramount+ raised its subscription costs by £12 per year.
That’s the equivalent of £1 extra a month, with the price is going up to £7.99 a month for its standard tier.
The streamer also followed the market trend by introducing a cheap subscription tier with adverts, which is now available at £4.99 a month.
Although 2024’s price hikes don’t necessarily mean you have to be £96 worse off in 2025.
You might want to consider something called ‘stream swapping’.
While premium TV can be worth it, do you really need to be paying for multiple subscriptions at once?
Instead, you can cancel everything and just keep Disney+ for a month.
Once you have watched the content you want to see on Disney+, you can switch to Netflix.
Here’s the advice from The Sun’s tech expert Sean Keach…
TV is great – and worth paying for.
But don’t let yourself be crushed by the weight of ever-growing streaming bills.
Take a look at all of the services you’re paying for.
Add them up and see how much you’re forking out over the course of a year.
Chances are, it’s way more than you’d like.
And it won’t stop there: those bills will keep on climbing as services continue to raise their prices in the coming months and years.
It might just be a wake-up call to cut those streaming bills with some of these simple tricks.
The beauty of it is: if you don’t like your new high-savings life, you can always switch back to the old way in an instant.
But by trying out a new way of streaming, you just might find yourself saving some cash and not missing relying on loads of premium services.
You’ve got nothing to lose by trying it out – and everything to gain.
There is tons of free TV out there that doesn’t rely on piracy – take advantage of it.
Here are some of the more popular free TV apps worth trying:
Make sure you’re actually getting what you’re paying for by checking your plan.
For example, if you’re paying to watch 4K Ultra HD content – are you actually getting 4K picture?
If you don’t have a 4K TV, you won’t get a 4K picture even if you’re paying for a 4K Netflix plan.
In which case, you could drop your subscription down a tier or two to save some cash.
The Sun recently revealed how you could save as much as £84 in the UK or $90 in the US over a year just by dropping from Premium to Standard.
Here's what you need to know...
Netflix Standard with Ads
Price: £4.99 / $6.99
Netflix Standard
Price: £10.99 / $15.49
Netflix Premium
Price: £17.99 / $22.99
