It has been about a week since the Writers Guild of America ended the Hollywood writers' strike after about five months of standoff between the entertainment industry and the employees behind the scene that make the whole industry go.
The writers won progress on rules around the use of artificial intelligence to create content, financial gains for screenwriters, and minimum staffing requirements. The writers also won the rights to bonuses based on high viewership on streaming platforms.
Related: Why the popular cord cutting movement may be about to self-destruct
That last win will add pressure to the bottom lines of streaming services like Netflix (NFLX) -) and Amazon Prime (AMZN) -) at a time when many parent companies — like Comcast (CMCSA) -) and its Peacock network, Viacom (VIAB) -) with its Paramount network — are reevaluating their streaming strategies.
Netflix in particular has faced investor pressure for years to either get content costs under control or raise prices. The company has decided to do both, raising prices while keeping the money it spends on content constant.
But now, according to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix is also looking to raise the price of its ad-free service tier a few months from now, and will likely begin this global initiative in the U.S. and Canada.
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On Tuesday, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) -) announced that it is raising the price of the ad-free version of Discovery+ to $8.99 from $6.99 per month.
Cord cutting was all the rage a few years ago, as the U.S., seemingly fed up with ever increasing costs and poor customer service, abandoned the cable apparatus that had dominated entertainment for the previous three decades.
Major cable providers lost about six million paid TV subscribers each year from 2019 to 2022, and the trend isn't slowing down. More than 2.3 million people cut the cord in the first quarter of 2023 alone, according to some estimates.
As of the end of the first quarter, U.S. pay TV services had 75.5 million subscribers, a 7% decline on an annual basis.
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