While “everyone has Netflix and Spotify” might be the prevailing thought, could that change anytime soon?
Recently, The Hollywood Reporter ran an article — “Streamflation Might Be Nearing a Crisis Point” — citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index (CPI) from December 2025. The CPI showed prices in the category “Subscription and Rental of Video and Video Games” had increased by 19.5% from November 2025.
The article had a point. BLS’ latest results for March 2026 show that the CPI for the “Subscription and Rental of Video and Video Games” category was up 13.3% year over year (March 2025 to March 2026). “Videodiscs and other media” were up 9.1%. “Recorded music and music subscriptions” increased by 6.2%. Just about everything we may want to stream is getting pricier:
- Netflix, the leader in streaming, raised prices again
- YouTube Premium is up by $2 per month
- Disney+ and Hulu raised prices for their ad-free tiers
- Amazon Prime Video increased the price for its ad-free Ultra plan by $2
- Spotify‘s Premium Plan is now $1 more per month
That 13.3% year-over-year estimate for March was far above overall inflation. BLS said the CPI including food and energy was up 3.3% in the same period. If you take out food and energy, the estimate was 2.6%.
We know that oil prices are up, which makes transportation more expensive, and that’s reflected in the CPI with “Energy” up 12.5% year over year and “Motor fuel” up 19.2%. I’m not aware that any large amounts of fossil fuels are needed for streaming services, though.
What else is matching streaming for inflation? Here are some results from the latest CPI:
- Beef and veal were up 12.1%
- Frozen fish and seafood were up 10.2%
- Tomatoes were up 22.6%
- Coffee was up 18.7%
- Candy and chewing gum were up 10.6%
- Women’s dresses were up 10.2%
- Audio equipment was up 15.0%
- Computer software and accessories were up 11.9%
- Airline fares were up 14.9%
On the deflationary side, the CPI results said:
- Eggs were down by 44.7%
- Butter was down by 8.3%
- Smartphones were down by 13.8%
- Admission to sporting events was down by 18.2%
- Tax return preparation was down by 12.7%
Most of the swings were understandable. Oil is dearer due to the Iran war. Beef herds are at their lowest sizes in decades while we want to eat more beef. Tariffs have affected other commodities, yet there’s no obvious reason that streaming services should be higher — except that the companies providing the services, Netflix excluded, have been losing money on them. The result is what The Hollywood Reporter called “streamflation.”
As prices go up, we should expect “churn” to increase as well. How many subscribers will drop services or switch to lower-priced tiers — meaning ad-supported? In my household, we finally dropped the ad-free Netflix service for the ad-supported version. Can we afford $20 a month for the “no ads” Netflix (plus 6% Kentucky sales tax)? Yes, but for the time we spend with the service over the course of a month, it just isn’t worth $250 per year. My assumption is that plenty of households — many of which are far more stretched than mine — will come to a similar conclusion. Four-dollar-a-gallon gas can do that.
I think we’re headed toward more bundling in the future to reduce the overall cost and to cut the sheer number of subscriptions (the last data I saw said the average U.S. household has four subscriptions). If T-Mobile is your cell carrier, you may be getting Netflix for free. Charter’s Spectrum TV includes a number of streams in their offering.
Of course, you can get intro pricing for some services, drop them when the promotion runs out, and subscribe again later when the offer returns. I’ve done that with MGM+ multiple times, never paying more than 99 cents per month.
This is also a problem for the “second-tier” streamers. Netflix is the top dog. Amazon Prime Video is part of the Amazon Prime package, and a large majority of American households either have a Prime subscription or have access to one. Other services are acquiring sports content to sweeten their appeal. That leaves some laggards that have limited appeal and are likely to face headwinds if the economy stays sour.
Where does radio fit in with all this? It’s still free. Unlike many years ago when Sirius and XM started up, and broadcasters had to decide whether to accept advertising for a competitor, I haven’t heard of any radio buys for Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, or any other streamer. Are you saying anything about “free” on your air? Are all those paid Spotify subscribers really getting $12.99 a month (plus tax in some states) worth of pleasure?
Put another way, is Spotify worth over $155 a year — over $165 a year in Kentucky with the sales tax — for the paid subscription? For some, the answer is “yes,” and there’s a free version of Spotify, and a version of Amazon Music is included in Prime. But “free” has always been a positive marketing word. Are we pushing that?
Let’s meet again next week.
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