YouTube Launches 'YouTube TV' In Select Markets (phonedog.com) 62
In late February, YouTube unveiled its live TV service called YouTube TV, which offers live TV streaming over the internet for $35 per month with no long-term contract required. The company has officially launched the service today in five select markets: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and Philadelphia. YouTube says that more markets are coming soon, however, details on when/where are scarce. PhoneDog reports: A membership to YouTube TV costs $35 per month and includes live streaming of channels like ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, and others. Subscribers also get an unlimited cloud DVR for recording shows that'll last up to nine months, and six accounts that each get their own recommendations and cloud DVRs. YouTube is offering a free one-month trial of YouTube TV so that everyone can give it a try. After your first paid month, YouTube will give you a Google Chromecast to thank you for sticking with the service. Source: YouTube Official Blog
Re: Cable/Sat TV (Score:2, Insightful)
Why pay for channels (except ESPN) when you can get them over the air.
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First...
Why pay for channels (except ESPN, ESPN2, USA, FX, FXX, and about 40 others) when you can get them over the air.
FTFY.
Second, because they don't work with my TV of choice, namely my iPad/Laptop/Phone.
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In the past year, I installed a HDHomeRun on my local network. It is a network connected OTA HDTV tuner with apps available at least on Android. With this setup, yup, sure enough, I have live OTA TV at home on every device in the house.
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You can't always get them over the air. In my market, I'm about 30 miles away from our local tower farm and I'm not easily able to put up a really good antenna.
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Why pay for ESPN when you can get the same content from MSNBC?
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My reaction was similar when I read the summary, but clicking on the link the channel lineup is actually deeper than that and if the "Coming Soon" channels actually do arrive, I might even consider it.
If they ever come to my area, that is.
It's interesting that the 5 channels mentioned in the summary are ones that I have very little interest in watching (zero interest for ESPN). Even when I had cable (an antenna isn't good enough for where I live) I hardly ever watched the other 4 mentioned.
Still, $35 is a
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Good question. Over the air TV is a hassle if you want similar functionality in your home. The technology to do something similar to YouTube TV is expensive and buggy.
For example: I stuck a giant antenna in my attic ($150), and then I bought an HDHomerun ($200), and their DVR software ($50,). Their DVR software has to run on some kind of a device, but I already own an NVidea shield, which it runs on. Before the HDHomerun I used a Tablo ($250) + ($150) hard drive. The Tablo, though, is a buggy piece of junk
Still nope. (Score:4, Informative)
I see little reason that I should have to pay money for TV shows that have commercials in it that cannot be skipped. They can continue being greedy assholes and I can continue only paying for services without commercials.
AdTV (Score:2)
I wish I knew where the actual satire is, but I saw it watching a Sargon of Akkad video, for "AdTV". Content approved by the names you trust. Coke, Pepsi, GM, Ford, and other great sponsors approve of the content you know you will love.
Youtube has been killing people that actually brought people to Youtube. While some can argue that they are collateral damage (and I would remain cynical and skeptical) we all see it happening. Youtube TV? no thanks.
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Test my theory, turn on AM talk radio and listen to a couple commercial breaks.
Cable TV 2.0 (Score:1)
Well, that didn't take long after the massive banhammer came down from the advertisers now did it?
I guess they are desperate to get something on youtube now considering they are forcing most of the youtube creators off of the platform. Maybe they just wanted more per-approved content to monetize. Too bad they won't have anything left for people to justify paying $35/mo for once that exodus is complete.
More proof that if those with power can't control it, they will find another way or make it illegal. Anythi
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Did Red offer any useful content other than home made reality shows?
I coulda paid a small amount to go ad-free and have decent things to watch, but they never showed me anything compelling.
A Different Internet? (Score:1)
YouTube TV, which offers live TV streaming over the internet
The company has officially launched the service today in five select markets
So, it's "over the Internet" but only available in 5 cities.
New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia have a different Internet from the rest of us?
WTF is this shit?
Re: A Different Internet? (Score:1)
No. But they have different local programming.
Eleven months from now... (Score:2)
"We regret to inform you that we're discontinuing YouTube TV. You will have nine days to move to a new TV provider."
Like clockwork.
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Make a fucking Kodi plugin. (Score:3)
Seriously.
If you don't want the hacker community hacking together some cluster fuck of a front end so it's half-assed included into Kodi, do it yourself now. You will get more subscribers, have an interface you can get behind, and you will be reaching out to people who are already statistically more likely to be Android people than iPhone people anyways. It's a good way to keep your customers happy.
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What's the advantage of having Kodi for youtube?
I have it on my Android TV, but I don't see the point in using it when I already have the youtube app already installed on both my Android TV and my Samsung TV.
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Kodi does have a good YouTube plugin, more than one I think, but nothing that's been Google blessed. I think you could half-ass your way to a favorites setup for channels.
Nooo! (Score:2)
NO , don't make a Kodi plugin.
Publish an API. Other people can make the plugins.
The only thing really wrong with all these streaming services, is that you have to run their software on your computer. That is weird, abnormal, and definitely highly undesirable. I am not going to run your "app" or plugin. I may decide to buy your service, though, if it has a well-defined interface.
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I'm perfectly okay with this, I even thought about it after I hit post.
I suppose the "DVR" part it mentioned is probably just copies of the show that are accessible to subscribers via a normal search?
No a la carte? (Score:3)
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This, and the fact that the official youtube channel crashes my roku after 5-10 minutes of watching. I have signed up for sling I think three times now to get a free roku with the deal and canceled it every time. Just not worth the money. Let me go ala-carte and maybe I'll buy/bite. I like to watch news, so I was essentially paying for sling to watch cnn. how the hell is that worth it. I'll just stick with the free options. France 24 is pretty damn good. Besides there is still Sky, iTV, Deutsche Nx, Al Jaze
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ESPN is viewed by a lot of people, though. Yes, a lot of us techy-folks don't watch it, but your average Joe Soap does. So they need to have it there to appeal to the masses.
But I agree - an a là carte option would be good. But that's not how TV Companies work (yet?!).
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
A bundle of live channels for a monthly fee? That sounds like cable. You're doing it wrong, Google.
Market (Score:3, Funny)
The company has officially launched the service today in five select markets: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
These are called cities, not markets, you insensitive clod.
Wrong (Score:2)
Refering to a city as a market in a context like this is completely accurate. Maybe go back to your high school economics class' text book for a review :)
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Relevant portion:
a (1) : a geographic area of demand for commodities or services - sell in the southern market
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San Francisco Bay Area is my favorite city.
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Seriously, how broken is your ability to comprehend abstract throught?
I perfectly understand the desire of some to reduce everything to the market.
Channels, don't be stupid (Score:1)
NOBODY watches channels, they watch PROGRAMS.
No one ever said "Love the Big Bang theory now if only it was on channel 3 instead of 10 I would watch it"
If these idiots ran a supermarket they would be telling you "Yes, but you have to include 3 items from isle 4, 2 chicken based products and at least 1 feminine hygiene product before you can check out with your loaf of bread, and because you also have milk you are required to buy Bacon, a wooden spatula , and a bir
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Weird strategic decisions at Youtube (Score:3)
I'm an active follower of youtube and watch a lot of Vlogs and podcasts and the likes. Rcenetly in the wake of the so called "PewPewdie scandal" [businessinsider.com] youtube has apparently shifted to be more and more restricve about what kind of content they allow to be monetized. Certain tags and words appear to be banned from getting ad-revenue, (recently it came to light their new policy prohibits including 'atheist' [youtube.com] in one's channel name, and in general old channels with atheism in their tittle have seen a huge drop in revenue. Have a look at their 'advertiser friendly content guidelines': [google.com]
This is all very very strange from a business perspective. I understand that youtube/Google wants to give their paying customers - advertisers - more control over the kind of content their ads are displayed on. I understand that they want to compete more directly with services such as Netflix. However, I do not understand their decision to do this in this way. independent content has been the core of YT for a decade now. it's what lifted them to their current position. And now they want to actively reduce their range of content because a single streamer made some jokes some people/companies didn't like? Like, to me it just seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot.
Besides, none of this applies to their corporate users, CNN and other news channels can still run content about terrorism and politics and keep getting ad-money, but if a private individual creates content on the same topic they don't get revenue? This is completely nonsensical. the correct move would be to allow advertisers determine whether or not they want their ads to be run just on 'approved' channels or on all kinds of videos. Hell, I can bet you that there are advertisers that would like to specifically target for example political videos or videos with black/vulgar humor or swears. The people who watch this type of content (myself included) are still consumers that buy items and services and they are a separate segment than those who prefer 'family friendly' content, so preventing advertising for this segment to me makes no sense whatsoever.
Instead of offering a more 'netflix-like' curated experience for those that want it and keeping the 'old youtube' as it is, they've now put in place guidelines which can be used to essentially destroy the majority of independent political vloggers for example. Sure, some of them can manage to keep going via services like Patreon allowing them to accept donationsfunding directly from the audience but that option is really only available to channels with a rather large following.
To me the great thing about YT has been the possibility it offers: if you create content that's appealing to people - whether it's in-depth political analysis, debates, silly animations or just guys s
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I think your criticism is partially ill-informed and partially premature.
The ill-informed part is that this isn't just about PewDiePie. That was just the beginning. YouTube's initial response was minor, but then major advertisers started noticing that their ads were still playing on content they didn't want it on, and started pulling their advertising.
The premature part is that there's no reason to believe that YouTube isn't going to do exactly what you said, allow advertisers to pick what they want to