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Youtube Media Television The Almighty Buck Entertainment

YouTube TV Jacks Up Pricing To Become Most Expensive Cable TV Alternative (usatoday.com) 154

Posted by BeauHD from the new-cable-TV dept.
On Tuesday, Google's YouTube TV announced a monthly $15 price hike, bringing its streaming package of channels to $64.99 monthly, from $49.99. "YouTube TV is now the most expensive of the cable TV streaming alternative services," notes USA Today. "When YouTube TV launched in 2017, it was $35." From the report: In a company blog post, YouTube defended its decision by announcing the availability of additional channels from Viacom, including MTV and Nickelodeon. The move is effective Tuesday for new members, while existing subscribers will see their rates rise after July 30. "This new price reflects the rising cost of content and we also believe it reflects the complete value of YouTube TV, from our breadth of content to the features that are changing how we watch live TV," YouTube said.

AT&T Now recently lowered pricing to $55 monthly, while Hulu with Live TV is $54.99. Sling TV is the lowest priced of the cable TV alternatives, at $30 monthly for the Orange or Blue packages, or $45 for both. However, Sling doesn't carry all the local broadcast stations in each market, so check your local listings. Philo is even cheaper, at $20 monthly, but is missing news and sports channels. A 2019 study by Consumer Reports found the average cable TV bill is $217.42 monthly.
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YouTube TV Jacks Up Pricing To Become Most Expensive Cable TV Alternative More

YouTube TV Jacks Up Pricing To Become Most Expensive Cable TV Alternative

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  • This model is running out of steam fast (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bohnanza ( 523456 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:34PM (#60248116)
    With digital OTA channels and free live streaming on Pluto and other services, it's getting hard to justify spending this kind of money to watch commercials. The ONLY reason I might do it is to watch Baseball, and there seems to be no reason to do that this year.
    • Our budget is $50/mo to rent or buy movies on Google play. We aren't watching but one or two movies per week and sports/local news isnt interesting to us. We get what we want and consume less TV.

      • Re: This model is running out of steam fast (Score:4, Insightful)

        by hambone142 ( 2551854 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @01:19AM (#60249388)

        My "budget" is zero dollars a month. I have the internet and I know how to watch video for free.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I would pay a couple of bucks to have ad-free YouTube but they don't even offer that. All you can get is the massively over-priced YouTube Red or Pro or whatever it's called now.

          • Youtube != YoutubeTV

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by afidel ( 530433 )

            Youtube Premium, and it's a whole $12/month or $18/month for a family. No ads on Youtube, offline content, streaming and offline music, seems like a pretty good amount of value to me compared to $65 for the TV stuff. Even before I signed up I found that my viewing habits had shifted towards the more focused content on Youtube, now it's 90% of what I watch. The other 10% is split between Amazon Prime video and Netflix.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Just the fact that it's cheaper in the US is enough to make me not pay for it. Why should I pay more than you?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by afidel ( 530433 )

                Is it cheaper? I know in the EU/GB they price it with VAT included, but in the US the price is pre-tax so it might end up being about the same cost.

    • Re:This model is running out of steam fast (Score:4, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @06:12PM (#60248242)

      The ONLY reason I might do it is to watch Baseball, and there seems to be no reason to do that this year.

      "This year?" :-)

      [ Baseball is only slightly more exciting than televised competitive house painting -- the drying phase. :-) ]

    • My cable/streaming bill for the month is zero, and has been for ages. If I want to watch:

      • A soap: Binoculars and the neighbours.
      • Porn: As above, other neighbours.
      • Action: Videos of what's happening in Minneapolis, Seattle, etc.
      • Comedy: Anything with Trump involved.

      There's really no need to pay for this when it's all out there for free.

    • No kidding. With the National League embracing the "Aging Employee Act" aka the designated hitter, I've totally said eff baseball anyway.

  • Oh well, at least there is competition

  • Still get commercials? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:40PM (#60248134)

    My only reason to sticking with some of the streaming services now, is that they don't have commercials; even if the cost is near the cost of "traditional" cable TV, the one advantage they've had is the lack of commercials.

    I have, however, avoided those that do have any commercials, of any kind , which includes and "promotional" content within videos, be it "sponsors" being mentioned, or anything like that (if it's not directly related to the content, it's a "commercial" in my book - Patreon/channel-specific merch & stuff or the like excluded).

    One thing YouTube videos are full of, is these "commercials", even if you're a subscriber. So if on top of the increase you still get commercials, then they've lost any hope of getting me to subscribe.

    • I agree. Even though I have a degree in marketing it's an absolutely disgusting when it stands in the way of my desired content. We never use any services that have ads unless they can be blocked or bought off.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      I mean, it's still linear TV. Even if they could cut out the commercials (which I'm sure the carriage contracts forbid, and if they allowed it you would be looking at a way more massive price hike) you would be sitting there with what, a silent black screen while the commercial break runs? Maybe a "We'll be right back" screen with some elevator music? If you want no commercials, don't get a linear TV subscription, get a SVOD service.
    • I am OK with watching commercials if I am not paying anything otherwise. I use Tubi, Pluto and a couple of other ad-supported services. I understand that they can't offer the service for free. And really, the number of commercials shown on Tubi is a small fraction of what I'd see on a cable channel. I have been watching reruns of Most Extreme Elimination Challenge and it takes 23 minutes per episode, because Spike TV showed 10 minutes of commercials out of every 30, and Tubi only shows 3 minutes.

    • I have, however, avoided those that do have any commercials, of any kind

      Jokes on you then. Everything on TV is advertising something, whether they spell it out or not.

    • Commercials is the reason why I stopped my Amazon prime video subscription after a month. The content was nice, price ok and such, but the "Please watch this other thing too" that you cannot turn off was too much.

    • Why not watch YouTube videos via a browser with adblock? That's what I do.

      Samsung kindly provides me with numerous adblockers for their browser. Easy to install and use.

      I'm totally with you though. First I stopped watching tv channels apart from BBC because they had no ads. That lasted for a decade until the BBC lost their way and became unacceptable due to politicking. So I stopped listening to their news and political discussions and kept on watched 3 shows. Then they ruined the best one (Top Gear) and a

  • Time to switch again (Score:3)

    by slapyslapslap ( 995769 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:40PM (#60248136)
    $15 more a month for channels I would never watch and didn't ask for? It's too bad. I was a big fan of YouTube TV. I recommended it to everyone and people have switched based on my recommendation. I was obviously fine with the offered channels because I singed up...I really don't know a single person who was holding out for these channels...

    • I agree. In fact I already had these channels and more with Philo. Of what they added, I only care about Paramount (already on Philo). Never watch the rest. Not sure where to, but we’ll need to switch. Fubo looks like a bargain now.

  • Meet the new boss... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:40PM (#60248140)
    We truly need a way to authorize recurring credit card payments at a fixed amounts rather than "however much they feel like taking."

    youtube is apparently now the same or worse than Comcast. About once a year I check my bill, and it has magically increased by about $25/mo, and I have to work at getting it back down close to what it was a year before.

    • Not a bad idea.

    • Have them send an ebill to your bank. Then either authorize automatic payments up to a specified amout or just review the ebills and send/schedule payments on your own schedule. There's no reason but the initial convenience to use a credit card for a recurring entertainment expense.

  • Like really, who asked for this?

    Everyone has been asking for a la carte TV. People who do not want to pay for the rubbish channels. Like people who like anime or cartoons, are constantly ripped off by having to pay an arm and a leg for sports and low quality broadcast channels that they don't even watch.

    These "package" deals are for people who have more than one family member in the house, and when it comes back to how many people can watch the streams, it's reflected in that cost. I pay for Netflix, but it

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      well who asked for it? americans apparently. by buying stupid cable packages that are 200 plus total per month.

      also, what the f? 200 dollars, per month, for tv? no wonder americans end up homeless often as they don't know the value of money..

    • People want to pay less for cable. They assume ala carte will get them there. There's no evidence that will happen and no theoretical reason it should.

      • People want to pay less for cable. They assume ala carte will get them there. There's no evidence that will happen and no theoretical reason it should.

        Well, we'll never know, because ala carte doesn't exist. I think it was Sling that pretended they were ala carte? Anyway, whoever it was only offered like two possible plans with some add-ons, which isn't ala carte at all.

        • ala carte exist in other countries... works quite well. Especially for us who only want a sensible number of channels.
      • It exists. In other countries.
        My cable supplier has a minimum change of approx $50 per month. That give me a number of "points" that I can allocate to the channels I want (more than I actually need, at the time). If I want more channels, I can purchase extra "points" which I can use to add extra channels (individually). They used to sell "packages", so if you wanted a specific channel, you had to purchase the entire "package". Not so anymore.
        And I can change which channels I want at any time. Pretty flex

        • I mean, $100 for internet, landline and cable is pretty standard even non-ala carte. That doesn't include "premium" channels like HBO or Showtime.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by afidel ( 530433 )

      The networks, who own the content, are asking for it. Why would they take $5/month per subscriber for the good stuff when they can get $10/month for the good and cheap stuff together?

  • Extortion (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheReaperD ( 937405 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:43PM (#60248150)

    Just more extortion from the copyright cartels. Since they're having issues with cord cutters in record numbers, they're trying to extort more money out of cable alternatives for their 'valuable content' in order to keep the C-suite multi-million dollar salaries and bonus checks rolling in. They're even forcing the cable alternatives to bundle additional 'channels' into their packages so you can't avoid paying for content you don't actually want; just like cable.

    • Dont forget the 32 other loser channels that host unscripted shit like storage wars, pawn shop wars, toddlers and tiaras. All that lame fucking shit. You cant just buy the non-suck shit. You have to finance the losers who turn their kids into pageant whores, and then feign outrage when trump says shit like âthese girls will let you do anything, even grab them by their pussiesâ(TM). They turned their kids into whores and are mad when some rich guy bought into the product.

      Dave Chapelle said it best

      • Re: Extortion (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @06:28PM (#60248298)

        Yeah, that shits all scripted too. My parents know someone whose relative was on American Pickers. After going back and forth a few times on an item they told them off camera "we will pay you what you want, just say yes to their offer". And Pawn Stars has had actors come in and play sellers.

        • Yeah, that shits all scripted too. My parents know someone whose relative was on American Pickers. After going back and forth a few times on an item they told them off camera "we will pay you what you want, just say yes to their offer". And Pawn Stars has had actors come in and play sellers.

          You mean TV isn't real! I'm shocked.

  • ATT Watch TV is free for a single stream of 30+ channels if you have their unlimited mobile data plan. You also get a choice between HBO, some other movie channel (cinemax maybe?) or a streaming service like pandora/spotify. I just went with HBO Go. Just download the Apps on roku or firetv and pay nothing. Between that, OTA, and Hulu, you should be fine for watching most things.

    Fuck this overpriced shit because Viacom wont let you have 1 channel without paying for 67 other channels. Fuck Honey BooBoo and h

  • Sorry, not sorry.

  • TV is dead except for the dead (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @05:56PM (#60248184)
    Who the fuck watches TV?

    • I consider watching videos all day on your computer to be the same thing as TV. The technology details are different, the effect is the same.

    • People who think video games are for kids.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjwest ( 14070 )
      I do. I'd much rather watch a movie on my 55" TV while sitting comfortably in my media room than on my 6" phone or 10" tablet, or even my 23" computer monitor while sitting not quite as comfortably at my desk. TV's these days are capable of streaming anything from the internet, and are not just for watching cable, DVD's. or BluRay's.

  • Internet service is needed to watch these things, and if you don't get Cable TV from your broadband provider, the bill eats your savings... you just can't win.

    • Internet service is needed to watch these things, and if you don't get Cable TV from your broadband provider

      Besides getting free TV-signal over the air, getting it from your cable-provider is the cheapest, all thing considered.

      Or, rather, it has to be the cheapest — and, if it is not, it the provider either being inefficient, or taking advantage of their monopoly power in your area. (Or both.)

      High-bandwidth streams, flowing from remote datacenters separately to each viewer — encryption [qz.com] defeating

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • And I was looking at cutting the cord from Comcast (although I'm stuck getting internet from them) That price is almost the same as what I'm paying now for TV.

  • Whys it called TV?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      The word television combines tele, "far off" in Greek, and vision, "something seen in the imagination," from a Latin root.

  • They really do have the most expensive line up out there. When I did the channel map for a cable company it was ten channels out of 77 and accounted for a quarter of the cost.

  • Ha ha, YouTube copies Apple and Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @06:36PM (#60248348)

    There was a day when most businesses leased their computers and software and paid regular support contract fees, and then along came Jobs and Woz at Apple and Gates at Microsoft with the sales pitch that said, essentially, "why are you paying all that money and not having ownership or control? Buy OUR stuff instead and you will OWN it, and own your data and control it all and be free of the monthly ransom payments!"

    People listened, and bought into the ownership model, and all the big old vendors collapsed with some re-inventing themselves to fit the new model and others now being just a memory.

    Once they attained market saturation, Apple and Microsoft needed a way to convince investors of rising revenue with a customer base that was not growing fast enough, and they re-awakened the old business model they destroyed - they re-branded offsite storage under somebody else's control as "the cloud", and leased software as cloud-related "365" this-n-that ---- but it's really just that they have discovered why big lazy no longer creative companies loved the old model of holding users hostage.

    In a similar way, consumers have long been tied to cable companies and their bundles. As the prices rose higher and higher and service got worse, YouTube and others stepped-in as newcomers encouraging a new model: streaming video and no bundles - watch what you want when you want for a low price. "Cord cutting" was the new buzzword. Unfortunately, you still had to have the cable company for that fast internet access, so you still had that part of the bill to pay. Now, however, YouTube has clearly decided to embrace the bundle model that the cable companies were so wedded to - so their users will have all the downsides of streaming, plus the cable bill for fast net access, plus the same sort of bundled content and related costs. Just as before, the user will pay for a huge number of channels while only watching one at a time, only now he/she cannot have multiple family members watching multiple shows simultaneously on multiple devices at no extra cost as they used to with cable. Oh, and since it's streaming data rather than broadcast on a cable, there are all the issues of paying for and needing more bandwidth...

    Sometimes, the dinosaurs in an industry have a lesson to teach: to be fat, dumb, and happy in that marketplace one probably needs that evil business model. Sometimes, the former upstarts in an industry forget the lessons they themselves once taught, and they leave themselves vulnerable to newer upstarts who remember those lessons....

    • I don't have direct experience with 365, but for Apple...

      With iCloud, you can get 50GB of high-availability, offsite backup for $12 a year. What "own your own hardware" alternative would you suggest that achieves the same? How much of my time will it take to set up and manage?

  • The "why should I want to have that in the first place" part.

  • The problem is the greedy content providers.

  • I actually do subscribe to one of these services - Philo - but its literally only for one channel (the Travel Channel - what can I say I like their cheesy ghost story shows).

    Even then it's a little expensive at $20/month, since I also pay for Netflix, CBS All Access, Prime (though moreso for shipping), CuriosityStream and Disney Plus.

    Even all those together though are still only coming in about even with YouTube TV.

    • I actually do subscribe to one of these services - Philo - but its literally only for one channel (the Travel Channel - what can I say I like their cheesy ghost story shows).

      Even then it's a little expensive at $20/month, since I also pay for Netflix, CBS All Access, Prime (though moreso for shipping), CuriosityStream and Disney Plus.

      Even all those together though are still only coming in about even with YouTube TV.

      I simply cannot understand why anyone would pay for so many streaming services. Perhaps you have a large family and they all like to watch different things?

      • Meh - I have a family of 4, but it's mostly for specific shows.

        Netflix is general purpose. CBS All Access is for Star Trek (Picard and Discovery). Disney Plus is for Mandalorian. Prime like I said is mostly for shipping with videos as a side benefit. CuriousityStream has a better selection of documentaries.

        Narrative content isn't quite like food where as long as you get some into your system you're sustained - specific stories are usually desired.

  • do yourself a favor and just get rid of cable tv. The vast majority of it is absolute garbage. Since the pandemic I have noticed that I don't really miss sports. I thought I was going to but in its absence I have discovered that I truly don't give a shit who wins or loses. Long ago I gave up on the nightly news. As near as I can tell it is nothing but propaganda. The only decision to make is if you want Fox flavored or CNN flavored propaganda. Don't even get me started on sitcoms, reality bullshit, home sho

  • 3-4 weeks ago they started a very annoying thing of every 5 minutes or so they interrupt the video to run a commercial or two. Very damned annoying. Does it mean I watch more commercials on YouTube? No, it means when I'm searching for background noise things that "Hmm, looks interesting" turn into "yeah, no".

    What is it with geniuses at the networks anyway? Pre-DVRs they'd take a popular show, put it against another popular show and, if it's rating went down, they'd cancel it. Or they would take a fa

    • IMHO, the idiots that run the networks, and those that run YouTube, need to be run out of town on a rail.

      So stop giving them money.

  • Yeah, I was thinking WTF? until the end of the summary, "oh yeah, Philo's $20 ... "

    but is missing news and sports channels.

    That's a feature, not a bug.

    • Yeah, I was thinking WTF? until the end of the summary, "oh yeah, Philo's $20 ... "

      but is missing news and sports channels.

      That's a feature, not a bug.

      You know, I wouldn't have noticed either. Useless crap I don't want to pay for.

  • So cable TV, then? (Score:3)

    by t4eXanadu ( 143668 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @12:24AM (#60249306)

    Thats what, slightly cheaper than the lowest tier cable TV package? One of the reasons my preferred service is a private torrent tracker.

  • The only logical reason to increase prices like this is to chase customers away before closing the service.

    My guess is that YouTube TV had no target market.

    People who watch video online either watch web series such as Netflix originals, shorts such as Normal YouTube, news such as BBC, or they watch sports through services like NBA all access. I have not checked, but I imagine ESPN has something too.

    People who YouTube TV could target are people who already have cable or are happy with antennas. People like m
  • And now I know. It seems every time I watch a video on youtube lately they throw an ad at me offering me a free month of youtube tv. Every time I turn it down, but they don't seem to learn from that.

    I was using sling for a while, but when they lost MLB I dropped them.

  • "In a company blog post, YouTube defended its decision by announcing the availability of additional channels from Viacom, including MTV and Nickelodeon. " ...YouTube is doing the same thing that cable networks have done which is to bundle shit that no one wants and charge accordingly. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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