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Youtube Television

YouTube is Taking on Over-the-Air TV With Nearly 4,000 Free Episodes of TV (theverge.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the how-about-it dept.
YouTube is the latest company to offer free shows TV with ads. The video giant says you'll now be able to stream nearly 4,000 episodes of TV for free, as long as you're also willing to watch ads during the show. From a report: Shows available include Hell's Kitchen, Andromeda, and Heartland, and you'll be able to watch them in the US on the web, mobile devices, and "most connected TVs via the YouTube TV app," YouTube says in a blog post. With the new free TV shows, YouTube is taking on a number of major competitors. One is over-the-air television -- by offering free TV on demand, YouTube is likely hoping that you'll see what's available on its platform instead of channel surfing to see what else might be on. And there are already many options for streaming ad-supported TV for free, including Tubi, Xumo, Plex, Roku, and offerings from Vizio, and Samsung -- just to name a few -- so YouTube is late to the game.
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YouTube is Taking on Over-the-Air TV With Nearly 4,000 Free Episodes of TV More

YouTube is Taking on Over-the-Air TV With Nearly 4,000 Free Episodes of TV

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  • The geographic restrictions on TV shows are so old and useless today. Let's take the ad's money from all the world today, otherwise if a user finds a geo restriction it will jump into the pirate wagon.

    • need to pay that tv license fee in some geo areas and this counts also we don't have an black and white one for the web

      • And whilst you're at it don't forget to pay your window tax ;)

      • TV licencing only applies to live TV or simulcasting scenarios. Also, the definition of live TV is based on watching shows to the same time as a TV channel (which is licenced to broadcast in your country) shows them,

        For example, you do not need a TV Licence to livestream Russia Today in the UK any more as their broadcasting licence got taken away. Likewise, if you want to watch previous episodes of Hell’s Kitchen on YouTube, that’s also fair game in the UK without a licence as that would no
      • I think in the UK it only counts for live or BBC provided streaming services. I'm not sure if there are other places that charge license fees?

    • You raise a valid point, but your Subject is quite distracting. Yes, I understand you were probably in a hurry to FP, and it isn't a bad angle for any YouTube story, but still...

      The simple response to your topic is that the google has become too corrupt to be bothered with small profits, no matter how honestly earned. Dare I say the google has become EVIL? (Yes, I dare. The real question is whether YouTube is the most EVIL bit of the google.) There is very little advertising money to be made in many geograp

  • All of which suck. How is a bigger pile of suckage helpful? If they F this up, which I am positive they will, it will be like cable TV in the 1980s .. 100 channels and nothing on. Well 1980s up to today.

    • Most of what is on TV is just junk food for your brain. It's trash that most of us enjoy watching. Now if you're complaining about the quality of something you're getting for free. I'd recommend not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

      If they F this up, which I am positive they will, it will be like cable TV in the 1980s .. 100 channels and nothing on

      Yeah, making a trillion dollars profit was a real F up for the cable companies. The consumer loses but someone definitely won.

      • Now if you're complaining about the quality of something you're getting for free. I'd recommend not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

        If I'm watching ads, it isn't free, nor is it a gift.

        • It is by any definition I was able to work out. Now you don't have to accept the gift. Especially with those kinds of strings attached. (I wouldn't)

          Your time is free when you have complete agency in how you choose to spend it. Such as the case when watching ad-laden content on the boob tube.

          • My time is much too valuable to me to watch ads. If other people want to, that's fine. The problem isn't just the time though, it's suffering through the ads. It just isn't worth it, and I can't accept that it's a gift or somehow free under those conditions.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @10:52AM (#62383289)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • It doesn't fit my ad-less vision of the world. (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @10:52AM (#62383291)

    I live in a pretty ad-less world. Adblock Plus (with like 20 blacklists), Pi-Hole and host-based blocking does wonders together. It's a peaceful, focused life and when from time to time I get to see other people's Internet experience I'm like "Damn, how do you live like this?!". There's no way I'm going to give this adless happy paradigm for a few crappy shows.

    Besides, broadcast TV has been on a decline for a very long time now, and it's no news that other prividers, including YouTube do things better and attract more customers.

    References:
    PiHole: https://pi-hole.net/ [pi-hole.net]
    Someone Who Cares host blacklist: https://someonewhocares.org/ho... [someonewhocares.org]

    • I've had some luck with an ad skipping browser extension for YouTube. It even skips sponsor segments in the most popular youtuber channels. Likely chipping away at creator's ad revenue and their livelihood.

      • Likely chipping away at creator's ad revenue and their livelihood.

        If you want to make money, get a job.

        If your "livelihood" depends on showing me ads, well, you can just fuck off with that.

        • If you want to make money, get a job.

          Yea, this is their job. YouTube pays them. It's hardly any different than any other freelance work.

          If your "livelihood" depends on showing me ads, well, you can just fuck off with that.

          I agree with you there. Advertising is an unproductive endeavor. If every person working in advertising and marketing stopped working and collected welfare payouts, it would be a net benefit to society. That's how bad it is.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

            I didn't care that much about youtube ads until the day they tried to force me to watch a 30 minute unskippable infomercial (not even a good one!) before I could waste five minutes on some fluff video.

            And sometimes it sent me more than one unskippable ad before reaching the desired video.

            And then they started another stupid trick -- if you leave the page open after the video ends, sometimes after a while it starts continuously playing ads.

            THAT was why I installed UBlock, and goodbye YT ads.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

      Interesting HOSTS file, thanks. Will have to merge it with my old hoary one, that started life at

      https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/h... [mvps.org]

  • YouTube may be late to this game, but they've been playing other games for long enough that brand name recognition may well carry the day.

    Prediction: Alphabet's next step for YouTube could well be to invest significant money in one of the big-name production studios, and eventually buy it out entirely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Plugh ( 27537 )
      We, as a society, need to degoogle. For this particular usecase, I recommend the federated PeerTube [joinpeertube.org]. Some motivated pirate can set up a server with crappy 80's TV if they want.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Prediction: Alphabet's next step for YouTube could well be to invest significant money in one of the big-name production studios, and eventually buy it out entirely.

      They already tried doing their own scripted shows and they got bored with it and shut it down. They sold Cobra Kai to Netflix and not sure what happened to the few other shows they had. Now all of their "originals" are low-cost reality and youtuber-produced crap. I don't see them circling back to it again anytime soon if ever.

  • There is so much media and entertainment to consume, and I find ads so painful now, that even if I really enjoy a show I just can't watch it with ads...

    Even on YouTube, if I see two 15 second ads coming I just bail from a video.

    That said I think it's nice a lot of people will be able to see these shows that might not have otherwise. I have nothing against ad-supported services as long as there's some way I can pay to get rid of ads.

  • NO! I'm entitled to any and all high budget, current, entertainment for FREE! GIMME GIMME GIMME.

  • I'm okay with ads, but not okay with tracking.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      Ditto, I don't adblock in my main browser I just use a tracking blocker, and by some coincidence I very rarely ever see ads.

      All the sites that moan about their sites being supported by ads and please view ads, sure, I'll view ads so long as they're 1. Static 2. Don't carry potentially dangerous scripts. 3. Aren't trying to spy on me.

      And it's kind of a moot point anyway because ads tend to make me hate to people advertising because of the false life-style consumerism = happiness paradigm being sold and becau

  • Adding 4000 episodes of TV does no good if people can't find it. There is already no shortage of content on YouTube, the problem is if you don't know exactly what to search for, you're at the mercy of their piss poor recommendation algorithm. If you watch one plumbing how-to video 10 years ago, new plumbing videos keep popping up in your feed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )

      Adding 4000 episodes of TV does no good if people can't find it.

      Excellent point, for OTA TV there are a few channels I occasionally see what's on but most stations I don't bother as all their content is of zero interest to me. There are some YT channels I follow i.e. Scott Manley, Wendover Productions. There are probably many more interesting channels but as you pointed out the algorithm suggest basically the same channels or same subjects. As far as episodes of TV shows, being an old guy I have seen all the old shows. The new shows don't seem to capture my attention. I

  • I have given up on traditional TV. Too many ads, brain dead content, too political. They will have to carry on without me.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I mainly watch YouTube. Springing for the paid service takes out all of the between video ads, but not the in video ad placements. Traditional TV, to me, is cable. I do have an over the air antenna but all I really watch is local news and some sports.

        I tried the YouTube TV service (basically cable TV served up by Google) but cancelled it before the free month expired. Honestly I prefer the user made content.

  • The blog post [blog.youtube] from YouTube has a link to the full list of ad-supported movies and shows being offered:

    Movies [youtube.com]
    TV Shows [youtube.com]

  • There probably aren't that many old shows you care about. For the few you do... buy the whole series, rip it to a disk connected to an old computer, run Jellyfin on it. Done.

    • There probably aren't that many old shows you care about. For the few you do... buy the whole series, rip it to a disk connected to an old computer, run Jellyfin on it. Done.

      You could do all that, or just watch it on YouTube apparently.

      • ... or just watch it on YouTube apparently.

        Because one week its there and the next its not, maybe only one season, you have to chase it or binge it. I know which local file share my shows are stored on, I payed the price to watch them years ago, screw never ending copyright.

  • I did a presentation for the Calgary Unix Users' Group last spring: http://brander.ca/cordcutcuug/ [brander.ca] ...about OTA recording to Linux, very cheap digitization hardware turning out large .MPG files that are all yours, to keep, edit, compress, archive a season, or quote a newscast in my pandemic blog: http://brander.ca/c19#vaxsurge [brander.ca]

    A TV transmitter in an urban area where most Americans live now, pumps out 288 Mbps, if it uses all 16 available HDTV channels at as much as 18 Mbps each, Blu-Ray quality.

    Letting slip

  • I use the Youtube app to control the app on my XBox or Shield.

    Twice I tried subscribing to get rid of ads, but both times I found the same problem. The commercial break markers completely buggered my ability to seek in a video, and they usually broke playback completely, terminating the video at the first marker. Even now sometimes the video can't actually stay synced when "skip ads" is selected - often it'll drop the current video completely and move on.

    They've had the very last dollar I will give them.

  • Seriously, what is it with these companies that just don't get the fact that we are done with the idea of watching shitty adverts - well, most of us are?

    I'm more than happy to pay for streaming services - and doing that cut me bothering to download suspect content by easily 90%.

    As for YouTube and adverts, it's still so ridiculously easy to block them - although I suspect it will get harder.

    There's already a very strong precedent - people will pay money to avoid advertising - but when companies start introdu

  • So I get few free tv shows with ads? (Actually I don't, since I'm not in the US).

    Ok then. I'll just torrent them since they're free anyway...and I'm not in the US.

  • Can you download them with youtube-dl?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

      I've tried with some of the officially sponsored movies on Youtube. The resulting file is no good and just plays static. I expect they'll do the same trick on these.

      There might be a workaround but I don't know what it might be.

  • Meh (Score:1)

    by EdZep ( 114198 )

    I watch over-the-air TV because I don't have or need bandwidth for streaming. Surely, I am not alone.

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