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Youtube Network Television The Almighty Buck Entertainment

YouTube TV Is Adding More Channels, But It's Also Getting More Expensive (theverge.com) 79

Posted by BeauHD from the cheaper-by-the-dozen dept.
YouTube's internet TV streaming service is expanding its programming with the addition of several Turner networks including TBS, TNT, CNN, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, truTV, and Turner Classic Movies. YouTube TV is also bringing NBA TV and MLB Network to the base lineup. NBA All Access and MLB.TV will be offered as optional paid add-ons "in the coming months." The downside? The price of the service is going up. The Verge reports: Starting March 13th, YouTube TV's monthly subscription cost will rise from $35 to $40. All customers who join the service prior to the 13th will be able to keep the lower $35 monthly rate going forward. And if you've been waiting for YouTube to add Viacom channels, that still hasn't happened yet. Hopefully these jumps in subscription cost won't happen very often. Otherwise these internet TV businesses might suddenly start feeling more like cable (and not in a good way). The Verge also mentions that YouTube TV is adding a bunch of new markets including: Lexington, Dayton, Honolulu, El Paso, Burlington, Plattsburgh, Richmond, Petersburg, Mobile, Syracuse, Champaign, Springfield, Columbia, Charleston, Harlingen, Wichita, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton.
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YouTube TV Is Adding More Channels, But It's Also Getting More Expensive More

YouTube TV Is Adding More Channels, But It's Also Getting More Expensive

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  • In many of these places, the ISP that's fast enough to watch this on a big screen also provides TV, and at a marginal cost of less than $40 if you buy the bundle.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Cutting_Crew ( 708624 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @08:42PM (#56126189)
      exactly. i mean whats the point? If you are close to dead even staying with your cable co. or the equivalent, its not worth the hassle. I have spectrum and if i just choose the basic internet plan (which i think is 75 mbps). its $80 + tax. So i go with youtube and pay $40 + tax and now i'm paying as much or more than what i pay for the previously mentioned basic internet plan + the lowest tier cable package.

      • You just made me double-check what we're paying and what we're getting. Already planning a saturday outing to the local cable branch to talk to them about WTF, how the hell did that creep up so high?

        The good news is that every couple of years when we do that, and bring the old hardware with us, they somehow manage to hack down the price, hook us up with the better hardware, and add new services. Corporate helldesk line? Fucking abysmal. Local folks? Cheerful helpful, and generally awesome.

      • Just so we're being fair. The price listed for Youtube TV includes tax. I pay $35 per month and that is the charge that shows up on my credit card. I happen to live in an urban area with a lot of choice for internet providers and get 100Mbps for $40 per month which also includes tax. Now don't forget your TV bundle with your cable provider you need to pay $10 for HD, oh and $10 per additional room you want to actually view the TV which keeps bumping up your costs where I am paying $75 per month all in.

    • A lot of times the /base/ price is about the same, but then they nickle and dime you for HD, DVRs, etc. And then on top of that often the low pricing is just introductory and then goes up after a year, and you're locked into a year or more contract. Also, cable companies always seem about a decade behind the times when it comes to user interfaces on their crappy set-top boxes.

      I was on Dish then SlingTV (plus a few others to get the specific channels I wanted) and then switched to YoutubeTV once their Roku a

  • Need a new law named (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @06:48PM (#56125725)

    We need some kind of new law, that states something along the lines of :

    "Any collection of video will eventually expand until it costs $50 a month to access, and contains only 5% desirable content".

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      and contains only 5% desirable content"

      Youtube wishes it could get to 5% desirable content.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      5%? You're an optimist, aren't you?

      $35 is already more than I pay for actual cable. With more channels. Which are also full of crap.

  • Call me when they go global.

  • Do not want. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @07:07PM (#56125811)

    YouTube TV is also bringing NBA TV and MLB Network to the base lineup. NBA All Access and MLB.TV will be offered as optional paid add-ons "in the coming months." The downside? The price of the service is going up.

    Did Google miss that the reason lots of cord cutters "cut the cord" was because they were sick of paying for sports networks they had no interest in?

  • Pay more for less! Evil included! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So what's the benefit of this compared to regular cable?
    Does it have automatically removal or skipping of commericals? Nope...
    Does it have on demand viewing? Nope...
    Does it have offline viewing? Nope..
    Does it have à la carte? Nope...
    Does it have more channels? Nope...
    Does it have all local channels? Nope, only the main ones... but I guess most cable companies do this too and don't carry the sbuchannels

    • It lets Google compile your viewing preferences and assimilate that into all the other data they have on you. Some people apparently consider that a plus, as they like targeted ads.

  • So YouTube TV is $40/mo. Which doesn't really replace Disney's $5/mo for ESPN plus, at least for sports fans.

    Amazon subscription pricing (for reference, I don't recommend them):
    HBO - $15/mo
    Cinemax - $10/mo
    HBO + Cinemax - $22/mo (a $3 savings!)

    I could fill this post with all the various subscription streaming services
    By the time very middle man has gotten their cut, I'll be paying 2x more than cable form this "cord cutting". I think cord cutting mainly works for people who pirate or w

    • Netflix is more about original content at this point.

      https://www.netflix.com/origin... [netflix.com]

      What do I watch?

      Movies: I like horror.
      * The Babysitter was the most fun movie I've seen since Evil Dead 2 (Satanism!!!).
      * Death Note should have been rated R as it was too creepy.
      * 1922 was messed up (a son helps his father murder the mother).

      TV shows: Ozark, Stranger Things, Narcos, those are the ones I've liked the best.

      And offline download which I use a lot, all of their original stuff is portable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by b0bby ( 201198 )

      I think cord cutting mainly works for people who pirate or who watch so little TV that the dregs on Netflix are sufficient.

      That's pretty much me - I watch, maybe, a couple of hours of "TV" a week; usually that's a movie, and likely as not it's one that's not even streaming. I subscribe to Netflix streaming mostly for the kids, Netflix DVDs mostly for my wife and me, and Amazon Prime because I'm using it anyway. For the Olympics/Super Bowl/other big live TV stuff, I have an old media center PC hooked to an antenna. I'm just about to replace that PC with a new OTA DVR thing (Channel Master Stream+) which looks like it will do the

  • Typical post-2007 Google product (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alternative_right ( 4678499 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @07:18PM (#56125855) Homepage Journal

    Instead of what we want, which is a la carte access to certain shows and movies, they want to sell us cable television over the internet. Brilliant. Hopefully no one falls for this.

    Antitrust cannot reap Google too soon...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Instead of what we want, which is a la carte access to certain shows and movies...

      To be fair, that is probably not entirely Google. Various companies don't just own one channel. That would be, well reasonable. They instead own a lot of channels and will often say, well if you want this popular one, you have to buy all these others.

      It would be interesting if a law was passed requiring all cable or similar services to be a la carte. A lot of crap channels would be lost pretty quickly and probably some good stuff too. Still, I think its worth the risk.

      The last time a la carte existed w

  • Youtube has been alienating users and while there's no other comparable platform, they invented the patreon thing to get alphabet of their back(youtubers). Youtube sees ads go down, advertisers leave, youtubers keep uploading content but don't care about ads because of patreon, many of the gamers already have monetized streaming on twitch and youtube is just the trunk with their videos... So unless alphabet goes back to 2010 tactics, youtube is kill, but a slow kill.

  • F that noise. (Score:3)

    by Snufu ( 1049644 ) on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @09:01PM (#56126275)

    The whole point of the interwebs is I consume what I want (pull) not what an ad exec wants me to watch (push.)

  • The moment Youtube forces me to pay for anything, that's the moment I stop using Youtube.

    It's 98% trash anyway, it's not like I'll lay awake in bed losing sleep over anything Youtube does or doesn't do.

    It's the tragedy of success...as soon as something becomes popular it starts to go downhill and gradually turns to shit. Sometimes not so gradually.

    • This isn't Youtube (like the website), it's a TV service (like Dish or DirecTV).

      • This isn't Youtube (like the website), it's a TV service (like Dish or DirecTV).

        Double-yawn.

        • Obviously whether or not you find YoutubeTV interesting makes no difference to me one way or another; I replied to your comment only because you seemed to misunderstand what the service was. Anyway, have a great day!

  • The amazing thing to me is that anyone is willing to spend $35 a month on Youtube.

  • When someone offers a sports-free channel selection, I will consider it; until then, they are just making a clone of traditional cable services online.

  • With the cost of home internet + all the online streaming services (youtube, hulu etc), you might as well just get cable + internet from your cable provider. They'll usually give you a discount for bundling them together and if you complain they'll lower your rates.

    • This does strike me as remarkably undercompeititve. They need to disrupt the entrenched business, and this is just duplicating the existing offering

  • Is it just the same as having cable? But you watch TV through a youtube 'app'?
    If so, what is the point? TV is rubbish, too many ads, show play when i can't watch them, can't binge series, too many bad shows/realitytv, ...
    Who wants this and pay $40 for it?

  • Is this site still Chrome only. I thought about it until I was told I needed to use that.

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