Technologies

Why You Shouldn’t Cancel Netflix This November (But Hulu Can Probably Go)

Which streaming services to keep and which to cancel for the month of November, based on fluctuating prices and what’s new to watch.

OK, we know, we know: This is the month Netflix launches its ad-based subscription for $7. But you only get one stream with that, and prices on the other plans are not changing. With that said, it’s a service you want to rock with this November for sure, especially with House of the Dragon, Rings of Power and She-Hulk already wrapped.

Every month you may wonder if you should cancel a streaming service to cut costs. And each month, I give advice on which ones to drop or keep during these difficult financial times. So, I’d like to offer one strategy: Churn like ice cream.

What does that mean? Subscribe for a term, cancel, switch to a different service, then resubscribe, keeping your favorites in a rotation. You can even pick one or two must-haves for the year and treat other streaming platforms like seasonal add-ons.The upside is that you get to save money when Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max and others don’t have the content you want to watch at a given time. Just remember to shut off autorenewal for your monthly subscriptions. Rotating may not be an option if you’re sharing your accounts with people outside your household, but if you can work out a system with your streaming posse, go for it.

Here are my recommendations on the streaming rotation you should have for November, primarily based on new TV shows and movies coming to each platform. Your tastes may differ, but if nothing else I urge you to at least consider the concept of rotating for savings. It’s easier than you might think.

Don’t let go of these streaming services in November

Netflix: Netflix has lots to offer this month. Animated flick The Bad Guys arrives on Nov. 1, but there are new releases galore. On Nov. 3, Blockbuster Season 1 arrives with Randall Park headlining the cast, and The Dragon Prince Season 4 drops as well. Enola Holmes 2, Manifest Season 4 part 1 and K-drama The Fabulous all land on Nov. 4. Then watch The Crown Season 5 starting Nov. 9 and Lindsay Lohan’s holiday movie Falling for Christmas on Nov. 10. Warrior Nun Season 2 also hits on Nov. 10.

Florence Pugh stars in The Wonder beginning Nov. 16, and the third and final season of Dead to Me debuts on Nov. 17. The ball keeps rolling with Elite Season 6 and Jason Momoa’s new film, Slumberland, on Nov. 18. Cap it off on Nov. 23 with Tim Burton’s Wednesday to see the Addams Family’s favorite daughter head to Nevermore Academy. Then follow up with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery starring Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc.

HBO Max: HBO Max is worth keeping if you’re a fan of The White Lotus. Season 2 has seven episodes that will air into December. Other notable releases this month include Titans Season 4 (Nov. 3) with Joseph Morgan from The Originals/Vampire Diaries debuting as Brother Blood. A Christmas Story Christmas — the sequel to the 1983 movie — premieres on Nov. 17, as well as season 2 of The Sex Lives of College Girls. On Nov. 1, all the Harry Potter movies and a collection of Star Trek films come to the streamer.

Disney Plus: Binge what you can on Disney Plus, especially if you plan to cancel in December when the ad-free plan shoots up to $11 per month. This month, Andor wraps its 12-episode run on Nov. 23, so you can binge the whole show after that date. Here’s what’s new: The Santa Clauses TV series (Nov. 16), Enchanted sequel Disenchanted finally drops Nov. 18, and an unmissable Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special arrives Nov. 25. Director James Gunn stated that the holiday film will serve as a prequel of sorts for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. After you watch it, you may want to check out The Hip Hop Nutcracker starring Run DMC’s Rev. Run.

Dancing With the Stars airs its live finale on Disney Plus on Nov. 21. And Willow, the sequel series to the 1988 fantasy movie, premieres on Nov. 30 with Warwick Davis reprising his role. The show will consist of eight episodes.

Prime Video: If you already get this service through your Prime membership, you may as well keep it. My Policeman starring Harry Styles will be free to stream for Prime members on Nov. 4. Catch Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty Vol. 4 fashion show on Nov. 9. The English with Emily Blunt and Mammals starring James Corden are two new Prime Video series that premiere on Nov. 11.

You can cancel these services this month

Hulu: Cancel Hulu if you’re not into anime or network TV — or finishing up The Handmaid’s Tale, which ends season 5 on Nov. 9. As for new titles, God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty about Jerry Falwell arrives on Nov. 1. The dubbed version of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War premieres Nov. 4, and Welcome to Chippendales lands on Nov. 22. You can keep watching Chainsaw Man, Hulu’s new roster of holiday movies or broadcast shows from Fox, ABC, etc. if you like.

Starz: Raising Kanan and The Serpent Queen have ended their seasons. BMF won’t return until January 2023. Cancel Starz for now.

Paramount Plus: If you want to watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it’ll be on this platform. New animated series, Transformers: EarthSpark debuts on Nov. 11. Other than that, Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King series — from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan — debuts Nov. 13 but it will also air right after Yellowstone on regular TV. Cancel unless you want to watch these shows or NFL football.

Peacock: Speaking of Yellowstone, if you were hoping to stream the season 5 premiere on Nov. 13 or right after, sorry to disappoint you. The show won’t be available on Peacock anytime soon. However, you can still watch sports like Sunday Night Football here.

Apple TV Plus: There are few new releases here, including the film Causeway with Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry and The Mosquito Coast Season 2, both arriving on Nov. 4. Mythic Quest Season 3 debuts Nov. 11. Because Mythic Quest and The Mosquito Coast have 10 episodes each, you can choose to binge both series next year when the entire seasons are available.

Save more money by being patient

If you’re not someone who routinely gets FOMO, then a smart method is to wait until the bulk or all episodes of your favorite series land on a platform. That way, rather than pay for a service for two or three months to cover the 6- to 10-week run of a show, you can catch up on everything by subscribing for one month. And then repeat the cycle again.

As an example, there are eight episodes of Willow this season on Disney Plus. The finale airs in January, so season 1 episodes will be available to stream at that time. Though it premieres on Nov. 30 and runs into 2023, why pay for all three months when you can wait to watch it in full anytime in January or February?

Think about how much you’re paying per month for each streaming service you have, and do the math. Netflix is $10 to $20, Disney Plus is anywhere from $3 to $8 depending on bundles, HBO Max costs $10 or $15, Hulu starts at $8 and Starz runs $9. The others have a base rate of $5 per month, and again, ad-free Disney Plus jumps to $11 starting in December. Should you decide to churn, set yourself a calendar reminder to alert you when it’s time to re-subscribe or cancel. We’ll see you next month for another streaming breakdown.

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know