Cord cutters won't get to see Donald Trump. Brian Frank/Reuters Bad news for cord cutters: You're going to need a cable or satellite subscription if you want to watch the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday evening.

A representative from CNBC confirmed to Tech Insider that the network will not make a livestream of the debate, which will take place at the University of Colorado Boulder, available to people who don't pay for CNBC through a television provider.

This is in contrast to CNN, which offered free livestreams of the two most recent presidential debates. Even people who didn't subscribe to CNN could watch the debate on their connected devices.

The debates on CNN each attracted nearly 1 million simultaneous streams in addition to the millions of viewers who tuned in on TV.

One reason that CNBC may not be eager to provide a free livestream of the debate is that the network is owned by NBCUniversal, which, in turn, is owned by Comcast, the largest cable company in the country.

And Comcast is in no hurry to offer its programming to people who don't pay for a subscription.

This isn't to say that there won't be any online stream of the debate. CNBC said that customers who authenticate their TV subscriptions on CNBC.com — a process that involves validating your TV subscription online — will be able to watch on Apple TV streaming devices, online, and on CNBC's mobile apps.

Fox News, which hosted the first Republican debate, did not stream the event online for free either.