Video Streaming Services That Let You Cut Cable TV – Consumer Reports

Monthly bill: $75 to $155

What you get: Plans start around $75 per month for a mix of live TV stations and cable channels. The top-tier package includes premium channels including HBO Max, Showtime, and Starz.

AT&T has been doing a lot of rejiggering lately, including spinning off its DirecTV satellite TV business into a new entity, also called DirecTV. DirecTV Stream—essentially the DirecTV satellite service without the dish—is the name for the company’s earlier AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now streaming services.

The company raised prices on all plans at the beginning of the year. The Entertainment plan now costs $75 a month, a $5-a-month price hike, while the Choice plan—the cheapest plan that provides regional sports networks—jumped $10, to $100 a month. The Ultimate plan (with Starz) now costs $110 a month, while the Premier plan (with HBO Max, Cinemax, and Showtime) is $155 a month. Those both represent $5-a-month increases.

Customers with legacy plans also got hit with monthly price increases of either $5 or $10, with plan prices ranging from $85 to $115 a month.

Last year Discovery and WarnerMedia completed a merger; the new entity is called Warner Bros. Discovery. Company executives have said the long-term plan will be to combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single streaming entity.

But in a slight change of course, the company recently decided it will also keep Discovery+ as a lower-cost stand-alone service for people not interested in scripted entertainment programming.

All of the services come with on-demand shows and movies, and unlimited cloud DVR storage.

One good thing about the newer DirecTV Stream service is that you don’t have to rent a box. You can use an app on streaming players such as Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku, on Android and iOS phones and tablets, and on some Samsung smart TVs. AT&T also sells its own Android-based player, which costs $120 up front or $5 per month for 24 months. That’s much pricier than most stand-alone streaming media players, though it does support 4K videos and has a voice remote and Google Assistant built in.

What you don’t get: Some local channels and regional sports networks aren’t available in all markets or in the most basic plan. And some channels, such as BBC World News, FXM (the FX movie channel), Logo, NHL Network, Nick Jr., Oxygen, and the Smithsonian Channel, are available only in the pricier plans.

Sign up for DirecTV Stream.