Once again, remembering to look at a calendar before clicking a “buy” button on a streaming-media player can pay off as device vendors and retailers resume their Thanksgiving ritual of Black Friday sales.
At Amazon, for example, the streaming-hardware sales lead off with the HD and 4K versions of its Fire Stick as well as its Fire TV Cube going for half off: $20, $25 and $60.
Roku is offering its Streaming Stick 4K stick for $25, half off the list price, with lesser discounts on the Roku Express ($18 instead of $30), Roku Ultra ($70 instead of $100) and Roku Streambar ($80 instead of $130).
Best Buy, Target, and Walmart offer most of the same sales on Amazon and Roku players, plus $10 or more discounts on Google’s Chromecast with Google TV: The HD model is down to $20 ($18 at Walmart) from $30, with the 4K version selling for $40 instead of $50.
Avi Greengart, president and lead analyst at Techsponential, pointed to the Roku 4K Stick as a particularly good deal, calling that device “nearly future-proof” in an email. At Amazon, however, he suggested the best deal was not on any of its players but on its 65” Fire TV Omni QLED 4K TV — “down to $550 instead of the launch price of $800 just a few weeks ago,” he wrote.
Roku is also offering short-term deals on subscription channels through its Roku Channel, such as three months of Apple TV+ and two months of 99-cent rates for Paramount+, Discovery+, Showtime and others.
And some individual streaming services are waving their own limited-term discounts to customers. HBO Max is offering a $1.99 rate for the first three months of its with-ads service, normally $9.99. Discovery+ is offering three months at 99 cents for its with-ads tier, usually $4.99. And Paramount+ is offering a 50% break on annual rates for its Essential and Premium plans, normally $49.99 and $99.99.
It’s fair to wonder if those half-off deals on Fire and Roku devices reflect business anxiety at Amazon and Roku, both of which have recently announced layoffs, but Greengart waved off that speculation.
“Earnings from Roku and layoffs at Amazon certainly point to a slowdown in streaming media device sales, but it’s dangerous to read too much into Black Friday sales because these devices are always – always – deeply discounted for Black Friday,” he said. “And Prime Day. And Christmas. And ‘Tuesday’.”