Pay TV bundling refuses to die, but the pressure is on to offer bite-sized pricing in the Netflix age.

The dreaded "bundle" has long been a frustration for Australian Pay TV viewers. It's painted as a good deal, but the reality is that Pay TV bundles force you to pay for a lot stuff you don't want in order to get the few shows you do want.

In Foxtel's case you're sometimes forced to pay for entire packages of channels you'll never watch, before you can sign up for the package which contains the few shows you actually want to see – like live footy or HBO blockbusters such as Game of Thrones.

Technically even Netflix, Stan (co-owned by Fairfax Media) and Amazon Prime Video are bundles – you're still paying for TV shows and movies that you're not interested in – but we don't tend to see it that way in Australia because this new generation of all-you-can-eat streaming services are so cheap compared to traditional Pay TV pricing.

These new services haven't just brought a wealth of new content to Australia, they've also put a lot of pressure on the traditional Pay TV providers to improve both their service and their pricing.

The Foxtel Play streaming service completely restructured its plans in December to coincide with the demise of Presto, now including HBO blockbusters in an entry-level package. Sport and Movies remain premium packages which are only available if you sign up for an entry-level package. Foxtel also recently launched a dedicated children's app.

Now streaming rival Fetch TV is fighting back with the launch of four "Skinny" $6 per month channel packs; Kids (with 10 channels), Knowledge (17), Vibe (13) and Variety (9). Fetch TV is also adding 10 extra channels across the service and offering all 49 entertainment channels for $20.

The concept of the bundle isn't dead, you'll still pay extra for premium content such as foreign language channels, beIN Sports or Optus Sports, the latter of which offers live English Premier League but is only available to customers who got their Fetch TV Mighty or Mini set-top box via Optus. The good thing is that, unlike Foxtel, you're not forced to sign up for some Fetch TV packages before you can access others.

Foxtel still has the upper hand when it comes to premium content, which is why many Australians seem to treat the cheaper streaming services like Netflix as an extra Foxtel package rather than an alternative service. Of course Foxtel's advantage will disappear when premium content providers like the AFL and HBO feel confident enough to go it alone in Australia and start their own standalone streaming services.

The AFL and Telstra have dipped their toe in the water with a mobile streaming service, but their kowtowing to Foxtel has reached new depths this year with tablet viewers forced to watch live matches in a tiny smartphone-sized window. You get a much better deal if you're watching the league's foreign streaming service Watch AFL, but it's geoblocked for Australian viewers.

Foxtel pays a shedload of cash for the AFL and HBO rights each year, but the launch of HBO Now in the US shows that content giants are happy to bypass the Pay TV gatekeepers and go direct once they feel the numbers stack up in their favour.

For now it seems prices are falling but Pay TV giants and their bundles will remain Australia's entertainment gatekeepers. What do you want from a Pay TV service? Will the pricing overhaul and bite-sized channel packs win you over?