Verizon to offer bundled Netflix, Max discount. Are more streaming bundles on the horizon?

Verizon myPlan customers will soon be able to get a 40% discount on streaming services Netflix and Max through the carrier’s new bundle offering.

The announcement comes less than a week after The Wall Street Journal last week reported that Apple TV+ and Paramount+ have been in discussions to bundle their streaming services. 

Industry experts say they expect more streaming companies to offer subscription bundles with rivals as they try to boost profits, but it's still unclear what those offers will look like and how much value they will bring to subscribers.

“These companies are not doing what’s best for consumers. They’re doing what’s best for their bottom line,” said streaming media analyst Dan Rayburn.

Other bundles forming

Partnerships are already common across streaming services. Paramount+ has partnerships with Walmart+ and Delta Air Lines, Peacock has partnered with Instacart and mobile plans like T-Mobile and Cricket Wireless offer various streaming deals.

What’s unique about Verizon’s bundle is that it’s among the first to offer two competing streaming services bundled together. 

The Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ bundle has been available since 2019, but all three companies are owned at least in part by Disney. Paramount Global also used to offer a Paramount+ and Showtime bundle before combining the two into Paramount+ with Showtime. And then there are offerings like Amazon Prime and Apple One, which offer a mix of streaming services, music and gaming from one provider.

“We've heard a lot about bundling over the last couple of years, but we haven't seen real bundling,” Rayburn told USA TODAY. Verizon’s offering is “not (Netflix and Max) working with one another. It's a mobile carrier getting together and bundling. That’s a very different type of bundling.”

Rayburn said he doesn’t expect to see any “real” bundling between streaming rivals any time soon, largely because figuring out which company owns the customer data would be a headache to sort through.

“When you're doing it through Verizon, it's completely different because Verizon is simply saying, ‘Sign up through us.' But then you have to go use a separate app to actually view the content,” he said. “Can you imagine Netflix saying to Disney, 'Everyone can sign up for your service through our payment system?' That's not going to happen.”

It’s unclear if any partnerships down the road – including a potential Apple TV+ and Paramount+ bundle – would also have an intermediary involved. Paramount declined to comment on The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, and Apple did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.

And while these sorts of bundles are meant to increase subscriber retention, Rayburn is skeptical about how effective this will prove to be.

"I think we will see companies start to experiment with the bundling of competing services and analyze the data to evaluate the impact it has on their balance sheet," he said. "However, there is no guarantee that bundling will cause more users to sign up and fewer users to churn."

While streaming companies tend not to share data on customer retention, Disney CEO Bob Iger said during an earnings call last month that "we found that where we bundled, we lower churn."

The case for bundling services

Despite the uncertainty, some industry experts say more bundling and consolidation among streaming services is inevitable. 

“We've got a lot of studios that are trying to launch their own standalone platforms. And not all of those platforms are going to be successful,” said Michael Smith, a professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. 

John Malone, who is known in the industry as the “cable cowboy” and serves on the board of directors for Warner Bros. Discovery, told CNBC last month that the idea of bundling has become more critical as media companies try to make their direct-to-consumer offerings more profitable. (The recent flurry of price hikes and crackdowns on password sharing have been other methods to try to squeeze out more money from streaming.)

Bundling "could certainly happen if one was focused on one type of demographic and the other, another type of demographic,” Malone told CNBC. “A Disney+ together with Max might be a pretty decent combination. You might also see sports-related or focused bundles.”

In September, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said conversations around bundling has been ramping up in recent months, citing Max’s two-month experiment offering content from AMC+ earlier this year.

“I think one of the things that we're going to see, as we look into the future, is bundling,” Zaslav said, adding that it should help “create more value and create a better consumer experience.”

What streaming bundles mean for consumers

Bundled services in theory can make streaming more consumer-friendly, according to Smith; no more wasting mental energy trying to remember which of your services has the sitcom “30 Rock” if your streaming is all under one roof, he said. 

But bundling could also hike up streaming costs since a bundled service tends to have a higher price tag than a standalone subscription. Research shows that the average consumer already spends more than $200 on subscriptions every month, according to a 2022 survey commissioned by market research firm C+R Research.

“It's good news for consumers, in terms of things getting easier to find. And it's good news for producers in terms of they'll have more market power and more loyalty,” Smith said. “Whether that turns out to be bad news for consumers because they end up with higher prices is yet to be determined.”

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Verizon bundling offerings

Starting Dec. 7, the ad-supported tiers from Netflix and Max (formerly HBO Max) can be bundled for Verizon customers on the Unlimited Welcome, Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate plan for $10 per month, according to a news release from Verizon. 

Alone, the ad-supported tiers from Netflix and Max cost $6.99 and $9.99 per month, respectively.

Verizon myPlan customers can also have access to a Disney bundle, which includes Disney+ with no ads, Hulu with ads, and ESPN+ with ads.

A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment on how many customers are eligible for the new bundle deal or how much money Netflix and Max are set to make per subscriber.