Now that prices of essential necessities of life are rising, the Dutch arelooking for ways to reduce costs. For example, how can you save on TV andinternet costs?
Jacob Kriek
December 9, 2022
Photo Getty Images
In this time of rising expenditure on energy and daily shopping, manyhouseholds are taking an extra critical look at their current subscriptions.An important monthly recurring cost item is the subscription for TV andinternet. In many cases, savings of up to tens of euros per month can be madewithout sacrificing too much viewing pleasure.
Fast is fast enough
We wrote earlier that many customers can save a lot on their internetsubscription. Consumers are often tempted to take out a subscription with aninternet speed that is higher than they need. And more speed means a highersubscription price. An internet speed of 100Mbps is more than sufficient foran average family. In many cases, a speed of 200Mbps is sufficient for alarger family. So don’t fall for marketing talk about gigabit internetsubscriptions. Depending on the provider, a downgrade to an internetsubscription with the speed that suits your needs can really save hundreds ofeuros on an annual basis.
Delete the plus package
But now the TV subscription. Our way of viewing TV and video content has beenchanging for some time now. More and more Dutch people watch online, and thischanged situation may also require a different TV subscription. For example,is the expensive traditional TV subscription still necessary? Dozens ofchannels are supplied with this type of subscription, more than half of whichare not or hardly watched by the family. And it is precisely the one channelthat is interested in that the provider has put in an additional package. Manyhouseholds therefore pay ten euros extra for a whole series of extra channelsin the list to only be able to watch that one fun channel. You may of coursewonder whether that channel is worth spending a hundred euros or more onannually. But even if that is the case, you can look for an alternative onlinesubscription with the same content as the beloved linear channel. For example,if it concerns a Discovery channel, the streaming service discovery+ is acheap alternative. With this streaming service, series can often also beviewed ad-free, and at the time that suits you best. There are more channelsfrom additional packages from providers whose content is also available from astreaming service. Those who delve into these possibilities can save a lot ofmoney every year without having to say goodbye to a beloved series or favoriteprogram.
Cordcutting
Watching online offers more benefits. For example, NLZIET can be a goodalternative to the traditional TV package for many viewers. Canceling theentire TV subscription with providers such as Ziggo, KPN and T-Mobile is alsoknown as cordcutting or cordcutting. And cordcutting can really save a lot ofmoney. The most important and most viewed Dutch channels of NPO, RTL Nederlandand Talpa Network can be viewed live with the basic package of NLZIET. NLZIEToffers 38 channels for less than eight euros per month. In addition, programsof the ten most important Dutch channels can also be viewed ad-free for atleast 365 days. The image quality is all right, because it is comparable tothat of providers of traditional television. NLZIET offers an additionalpackage of ten international channels, including five channels of the Britishpublic broadcaster BBC, for an extra two euros per month. Another, slightlymore expensive alternative is Canal Digitaal’s OTT subscription. This isespecially interesting for football fans. For 15 euros per month, thisstreaming service allows you to watch around seventy channels, including allchannels of the pay channel ESPN. All matches of the Dutch football leagueEredivisie can therefore be followed live at no extra cost. By way ofcomparison: at Ziggo, the additional subscription to ESPN alone costs threeeuros per month more than the full OTT subscription from Canal Digitaal.
Shopping with streaming
Significant savings can also be made with the increasingly popular streamingservices. Because why would you take out subscriptions to multiple streamingservices at the same time? Streaming services can be canceled monthly, afterwhich you can of course take out a new subscription at any time. For example,choose to watch a basket of films and series via Netflix, and cancel thesubscriptions of all other streaming services during this ‘Netflix month’. Thefollowing month you cancel the Netflix subscription and activate asubscription to, for example, HBO Max. It really saves a lot of money on anannual basis. Be careful with any long-term discounts. For example, HBO Maxand SkyShowtime offer first-time subscribers a 50 percent “lifetime” discount.However, this expires if the subscription is (temporarily) cancelled.
Share subscription?
A popular way to reduce streaming service costs is to share subscriptions withfamily and friends. However, this is a practice that more and more streamingservices are beginning to restrict. Anyone who reads the general terms andconditions of the services carefully will also find that sharing subscriptionswith people outside the household is officially not allowed.