Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV and others let you cut the cord, literally with your cable company but keep the live channels and DVR. You have many choices, here’s how they stack up.
If you want to cut the cable TV cord but still want to keep live TV, its all about the streaming. Live TV streaming YouTube TV and Sling TV has live channels and let you watch probably all of your favorites, or close to it. Live channels include ABC to NBC to ESPN to CNN to Nickelodeon to Fox News. They likely will be less than your cable subscription.
Streaming prices start at $15 per month with no extra fees or contracts. That means no cable boxes to rent etc. It’s just the app and or smart TV or Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV. And you can watch at home or pretty much where ever you are on your phone or tablet.
You will just have to calculate the savings and see if it’s worth it. Do the savings outweighed by other downsides such as internet fees, DVR restrictions, buffering and a lack of things to watch, especially live sports? And just like cable TV, the costs of these services continue to just keep going up. AT&T will raise the price of its AT&T TV Now service packages, and Hulu with Live TV also had an increase of $10 in December. While PlayStation Vue was among our top picks for premium options, unfortunately, Sony is shuttering its PS Vue streaming service in January 2020.
LIVE TV STREAMING SERVICES COMPARED
| YouTube TV | Sling TV | Hulu with Live TV | AT&T TV Now | |
| Base price | $50/month for 70-plus channels | $25/month for 30-plus channels | $60/month for 60-plus channels | $65/month for 45-plus channels |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC channels | Yes, in many markets | Fox and NBC only in some cities | Yes, in most cities | Yes, in most cities |
| Simultaneous streams per account | 3 | 1 or 3 | 2 ($15 option for unlimited) | 2 ($5 option for 3) |
| Family member/user profiles | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Cloud DVR | Yes (keep for 9 months) included | Yes ($5 per month, can’t record Disney or ESPN channels) | Yes | Yes (20GB, keep for 30 days) |
| Fast-forward through or skip commercials with cloud DVR | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (Yes with $15 fee) |
As you can see there are many options. And, don’t forget there are also free streaming apps. Pluto is one that has a variety of everything, but no sports but does have some live channels, just not your local ones.
Look around you may be surprised what options you have, and they are just growing. Don’t forget to consider your Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos when considering your options.
Related: More ‘Free TV apps
