If Americans didn’t love a good deal, we probably wouldn’t have 140 streaming services and 30 different TV streaming platforms to choose from. For over a decade, Americans have been canceling their cable subscriptions and embracing cheaper digital streaming services, causing seismic shifts in how entertainment giants pay for entertainment. These imposing costs have been passed on to providers like YouTube TV, which has doubled the price of its subscription over the last six years due to “rising content costs.” But how bad is it, really? Google doesn’t say, but sports-focused TV streaming platform FuboTVFUBO

offers some clues.

• In the first nine months of 2024, FuboTV booked $1.09B in subscription revenue and spent 96% of that on “subscriber-related expenses” and “broadcasting and transmission.”
• Even when including advertising and other revenues, the company’s necessary expenses still accounted for 88% of total revenue — and in its latest quarter, this ratio only improved slightly.

How is this sustainable? FuboTV isn’t the only business feeling the heat —FUBO

is down 50% this year as the challenges of pay TV’s rising costs persist. Adjusted for inflation, cable bundled with digital streaming is slightly cheaper today than it was in 2008 — great for consumers but a headache for entertainment giants juggling fast-growing, barely profitable streaming businesses with declining but still valuable legacy TV divisions. That’s why companies like AT&TT

and ComcastCMCSA

have already made sweeping changes to leave that world behind. Even now, many businesses are plotting big changes to reorient for the shifting landscape.