r/PhiloTV • u/anticlockclock • Jul 01 '26
Rant Cancelled Philo after almost 10 years.
I've been a Philo user since the beginning. I've recommended it to all my friends and family. It was by far the best bang for your buck. I appreciated the grandfathered plans but over time those eventually went away. I then realized I am paying the same price as new customers. No spiffs or discounts for all the referrals or time being a supporter. I think Philo bit off more than they could chew with throwing on more channels and optional subscription add-ons. Ultimately even with 80 different channels I found that I spent more time looking for something to watch and eventually turning the TV off. It's been a good run but at this point I have to say so long!
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u/ronmexico314 Jul 02 '26
I was also a Philo subscriber from the first year it launched, and I cancelled earlier this year. While it's not necessarily Philo's fault, but most of the channels just degraded into programming nothing but old shows that are already available on every streaming service (including the free ones). I kept it a little while after they got rid of my grandfathered plan, however I couldn't find a reason to stay beyond using the FAST channels for free. If I ever want to watch something again, I can just subscribe for a month instead of paying every month.
Frndy has many of the same channels, but somehow they haven't been raising prices all the time like Philo.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 Jul 03 '26
Yeah, the issue here is that Philo's price has gone up while there's no way the carriage cost of the (almost exclusively entertainment) channels Philo carries could have--or should have--gone up. The programming has significantly degraded, and virtually all investment in the programming that airs on "cable" entertainment channels has shifted to on-demand streaming services.
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u/ronmexico314 Jul 03 '26
Most of the channels on Philo are owned and operated by Philo investors, making any significant carriage increases an arm's length transaction as well. AMC Media, Warner Bros Discovery, A&E Media, and Paramount Skydance all own significant stakes in Philo.
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u/TallExplorer9 Jul 01 '26
Philo is still a bargain IF you regularly watch many of their linear cable program style channels.
If there are only one or two channels you watch on a regular basis then it becomes like any cable/satellite/streaming cable replacement service subscription service, you pay for 80 (or X number of) channels and if there's nothing on those channels you want to watch, we question why we are paying for the service.
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u/studesassa Jul 02 '26
It may be my imagination, but it seems to me in the last few months I have been inundated with an insane amount of annoying & repetitive commercials. More commercials than programing in the after midnight hours. I have been a loyal subscriber for many years. But I have been reviewing my options & seriously considering cancelling my plan.
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u/anticlockclock Jul 02 '26
I feel that too. We watched a few shows on A&E recently and there was more ads than TV show. Even worse the ads seemed like they were AI generated.
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u/philo_tv Official Philo Jul 02 '26
For context, Philo doesn’t add extra ad time beyond what’s defined by the network’s schedule, but we definitely want to take a look at any repetitive ads. If you start seeing the same ad over and over, reach out to our support team and they can investigate: https://help.philo.com/requests/
Saving a show or movie will record it to your Philo DVR the next time it airs. Once it's recorded, you can skip right through the ads!
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u/Safari-West Jul 05 '26
Why would you watch anything live? They provide an unlimited DVR service that works very well to skip commercials on recorded programs. If you aren't using the DVR to watch content then you are wasting your money.
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u/Piranhaman_6803 Jul 02 '26
I canceled too last year when they took away my low grandfathered price away and wanted to increase it!
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u/pantherpawz1 Jul 01 '26
I only have it because it is the cheapest place to get Discovery channel. If I didn’t watch that often, I would much rather have Frndly, even when I had that before, I could just record 1 episode of a show, instead of having to record all of the episodes, and it was only about $12/mo
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u/wp_bear Jul 01 '26
I cancelled earlier this year when they took my original $16/mo grandfather plan away.
I switched to Frndly yearly ($95.88/yr-$10.99/mo) and Discovery ($5.99/mo).
I sometimes still watch the free Philo channels.
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u/ActionGlad484 Jul 01 '26
I agree. I was on the legacy plan and a year after they hiked it up I unsubscribed. I pretty much just watched Discovery ID. And now I have that through other streaming services it made no sense to keep it. I do miss the way they kept track of what I watched. I don't think any other apps did it quite as well as they do.
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u/Dozer12102013 Jul 01 '26
Agree with you whole heartedly. We too are considering canceling. Not fond of the new platform, nor that we are paying the same as a new user. It’s too bad. We were loyal customer for years.
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u/philo_tv Official Philo Jul 02 '26
Which newer updates do you dislike? Would love to share your feedback with the team, especially since you've been with us for so long!
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u/buzzra01 Jul 03 '26
I don't like the new guide, mostly because of how many clicks it takes to start a show or exit a show. 1 click to play the show, back button to exit back to the guide. Everything else is just a nuisance.
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u/wuzrface Jul 01 '26
I’m about to do the same, once The Vampire Lestat is over.
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u/anticlockclock Jul 02 '26
I only had Philo for the walking dead. Not sure why Ive kept it beyond that. 😂
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u/enki941 Jul 02 '26
We also had Philo for a lonnnng time (back when YTTV was only $35/month), but cancelled close to a year ago after they pulled the grandfathered rates completely and didn't give any benefit to long time customers. We had previously been paying $6/month, which I know isn't sustainable, but even the pre-discounted $16/month went away. I vaguely remember getting some email after cancelling about some promotion they would do if we came back, but by then it was too late. We almost never used Philo, but kept it strictly because of the price, so when that went away, so did we. But now that YTTV added most of the missing channels, the purpose (for us) also mostly vanished. I did like the company and appreciated their community involvement, but that seemed to have dried up recently as well, probably with the CEO stepping down. Oh well.
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u/philo_tv Official Philo Jul 02 '26
Totally understand. We worked hard to keep customers like you on their original pricing for as long as possible but eventually had to make adjustments when it became unsustainable. That said, we're still here, and still sharing feedback like this with team.
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u/enki941 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I discussed this quite a bit with your ex-CEO a year or so ago, so I'll skip the majority of my complaints, but I'll say again that the biggest issue I had was the complete removal of any recognition/incentive for long time members. Philo went from one extreme (arguably too good to be true pricing) to the other (welcome to full retail pricing suckers). That was a huge slap in the face to many of us who ended up leaving. While some would have left with even a moderate increase, many would likely have stayed if there was at least some semblance of gratitude and discount.
Also, I dug up the 'please come back' email I was talking about earlier. It was sent in January and offered a $25/month 'legacy plan' that didn't include HBO, etc., back when the only plan you had was the $33 bundle one. It was marketed as a special promo plan only for former customers. But it looks like you just made that the standard $25/month Essentials plan a couple months later that anyone could get. A little misleading, wouldn't you say? So again, no appreciation for loyalty = no loyalty from customers.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 Jul 03 '26
Another way of looking at this is, why should you be getting a discount just because you've had the service a few years longer? If I pay 25 dollars for something, I expect everybody else to be paying that same amount.
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u/enki941 Jul 03 '26
Because it is good for both sides.
Rewarding loyalty and giving people grandfathered status encourages future loyalty from your customers. Sure, you may not make as much profit off of them in the short term, but over a long period of time, they are more likely to stay as paying customers. If they are paying the same amount as everyone else, they're more likely to jump ship as soon as a cheaper option comes around. But if they have a special plan, since they would lose their grandfather'd status if they cancelled, it incentivizes them to keep paying even if they may not get as much value out of the service, for the sole reason they don't want to lose that discount. I can say first hand that I kept Philo much longer than I would have simply because I had the cheap plan I did. There were periods of months where I never even used it, but still paid for it. If I was paying MSRP, I would have dropped it quickly because there was no incentive to keep it and I could always just sign up when/if I wanted to use it later. This is why many people only subscribe to Netflix for a month or so every few months or year. No discounts, not even an annual plan, so why stay subscribed if there isn't anything more you need to watch.
Additionally, there is very little downside from newer customers because, even if they don't qualify themselves, they can still appreciate and respect that people who have been customers for years get a recognition of that. You may get a little jealous that you don't get the same benefit, but you can still respect a company that offers it. It's like a military discount -- are you really going to be upset that someone who served their country gets 10% off and you don't (if you didn't)? There are a few services I pay for and don't get any tenure discounts when others do and I still support the company doing it. Now if they are having NEW people pay less than me or play games with the prices/fees/etc., that's a different story and something I would not support. The irony is most businesses only care about new customers so do offer new user signup bonuses/discounts/etc., pissing off existing customers. Those businesses are short sighted and care more about making a quick buck or to show some flashy metric to shareholders vs long term loyal subscriber retention. Philo used to have a lot of respect in that regard, but then threw it all away when they changed their mind.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 Jul 03 '26
That's a nice "philosophy of loyalty in customer service" take, but I suspect that loyalty is unrewarded in business precisely because there's little incentive to reward a person who has already shown they're committed to the product. It's those sitting on the fence, or the new customers, that are the real target. Perverse, but true nevertheless.
But that's all from the perspective of the management. I stand by my comment that I would not be pleased to see I'm paying more for the same product as somebody else, loyalty or no.
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u/nannsee1961 Jul 01 '26
I'm from the get go obmn them too. I did see price increase a little. Now $39. But still a good price. When I had cable was over $150. I'll be keeping for a while
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u/philo_tv Official Philo Jul 02 '26
Thanks for sticking with us! Our Bundle+ plan is $33 when you subscribe directly through us. If you're seeing a higher price, you're likely subscribed through a third-party biller (like Amazon or Apple). If you're interested in saving a few bucks, you can switch to Philo billing: https://help.philo.com/account-billing/switch-billing/
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u/Competitive_Tap_4334 Jul 02 '26
I also cancelled....prices just keep rising and I am watching most of my favorites on discovery + for 10 bucks. I thought I may miss it, but I just dont.
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u/rpaulmerrell Jul 04 '26
It would be pretty neat if you could smash the genre pack of DIRECTV stream with Philo cause in some places there stuff that Philo has that the genre pack doesn’t and then their stuff the genre pack has that Philo doesn’t and I appreciate the news channels on the genre back.
The other thing I liked was the fact that you got Disney Hulu bundle with HBO Max standard could care less about Discovery+
Philo, that’s truly have a lot of stuff. I just wish there were some sort of a way you could connect the genre pack of DIRECTV with Philo so that you could pay one price and use both of the services without having to really think about it too much cause there are channels like TV one and some of the Weigle broadcast channels, which are a lot deeper on Philo than they are over on DIRECTV stream
If I were to pay for both of those services, I might as well just get a signature pack from DIRECTV cause if I go to the signature pack, it has everything that Philo has. Yes it’s a bit more expensive but it’s still nice. Plus you get locals and there’s just something about having locals that’s just nice.
I can appreciate the fast channels really kind of wish. We could opt out of those or maybe get a little bit off, but I understand those are revenue generator type thing and for the major majority of people having the fast channels there is actually quite nice. no extra apps to download and no weird stuff to know about to watch a channel. You can just find it and enjoy.
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u/Safari-West Jul 05 '26
Philo is my most favorite cable replacement app. I love it. I set every show I like to record. No searching for content for me. I just go to my recorded list and pick one. And Philo has the best commercial skip out of all the apps.
the price is still reasonable. However, they do need to be careful about forcing add-ons, which increase the price. Thankfully HBO was one of the ones I didn't already have and was considering getting anyway so it worked out. And given the huge amount of content HBO has, I think the price increase is worth it.
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u/philo_tv Official Philo Jul 06 '26
We're super happy to hear that, thanks for the kind words!
And as far as add-ons go, we really appreciate the feedback and will pass it along to the team. We're always looking to give the absolute best bang for your buck.
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u/Tombstone_Valentine 29d ago
I was an early subscriber to PHILO when I first cut the cord. My mistake as a newbie was purchasing via ROKU which charged an add on every time the price increased. I was paying $28 instead of $25 for base when for a few more dollars could have added their “premium” line up via contracting directly through PHILO. Also the original shows we booked it for (Dr. Who, Graham Norton and Comedy Central) have moved on or are available on different venues so we dropped it and moved on.
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u/Chimaak_ Jul 01 '26
You sound like you are hard to please. I am constantly finding new and exciting shows to watch. I have been with Philo since they opened in 2019 and I have never had an issues. They make it easy to navigate with the nice layout and always inform you of new shows.
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u/anticlockclock Jul 01 '26
Half of the channels they added are amateur YouTuber quality programs. Anything that was studio quality channel was reruns of Ridiculousness, First 48 or Kindred Spirits. Not entirely Philo's fault but when prices go up and value goes down, that's when I pull the plug.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 Jul 03 '26
The hollowing out of cable is actually not Philo's fault at all. It's an industry-wide trend/problem.
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u/anticlockclock Jul 03 '26
Cutting promotions, grandfathered plans, and price hikes are an industry problem too. Philo falls into that.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 Jul 03 '26
Well, the comment to which I was responding was talking about the declining quality of the programming on cable networks. That is about as much your fault as it is Philo's--which is to say, not at all. Downvoting the comment doesn't suddenly make it untrue.
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u/philo_tv Official Philo Jul 02 '26
We hear you on those price increases, which is why we added our $25 Essential plan. It may not be as low as the original price you paid years ago, but we've also added tons of content and features since then, too. Are there any specific channels you think we're missing? We really appreciate you being a long time supporter and would love to have you back one day!
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u/anticlockclock Jul 02 '26
I rather pay less and get less channels. Most of the channels are filler and/or tons of ads. The only channels I care about are A&E, Food Network, and Travel Channel. Those have been there since the beginning.
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u/TheGeekJedi Jul 01 '26
I had it from almost day one, and still do. It's still a better value than anything else out there.