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Youtube Businesses

YouTube TV Hikes Price To $72.99 Per Month Due To Rising 'Content Costs' (techcrunch.com) 95

Posted by msmash from the everything-expensive-all-at-once dept.
YouTube has announced that it's raising the price of its YouTube TV subscription to $72.99 per month. From a report: The new monthly price is an $8 increase from the current $64.99 monthly fee. New members will see the new price starting today, while existing members will see the price change staring on April 18. The Google-owned company blames a rise in "content costs" for the change. To soften the blow, the company announced that it's lowering the price of its 4K Plus add-on from $19.99 per month to $9.99 per month. "As content costs have risen and we continue to invest in our quality of service, we'll be adjusting our monthly cost, after 3 years, from $64.99/mo to $72.99/mo, in order to bring you the best possible TV service," the company said in a tweet.
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YouTube TV Hikes Price To $72.99 Per Month Due To Rising 'Content Costs' More

YouTube TV Hikes Price To $72.99 Per Month Due To Rising 'Content Costs'

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  • Ha (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

    I pay that much per year for a torrent proxy.

    • Re: Ha (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nsbfikwjuunkifjqhm ( 8274554 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @06:27PM (#63376777)
      And...? What, you want a medal for being the first person in the world to figure out that it's cheaper to steal something than to pay for it? Are we supposed to be impressed that a simple proxy can sell their services for less than it costs to produce quality content? Or are you merely choosing to out yourself as an idiot for paying anything to pirate stuff when the while fucking point is that it's supposed to be free?

      • Or are you merely choosing to out yourself as an idiot for paying anything to pirate stuff when the while fucking point is that it's supposed to be free?

        I pay $5 a month to prevent getting DMCA notices. That's just being smart.

    • I got mine on discount for 34.99 a year. ;)

    • Re: Ha (Score:2)

      by Plugh ( 27537 )
      I pay for a VM in the Cloud on which I run an Invidious [slashdot.org] instance (among other things - Invidious is pretty lightweight). I have not seen a YouTube ad in nearly a year. And GAFAM has no idea what my viewing habits are.

  • Cable TV-like service has Cable TV-like price rise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ardmhacha ( 192482 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @04:55PM (#63376559)

    YouTubeTV is really just a cable TV bundle delivered over the internet. It is no real surprise that it's price is behaving in a similar manner to the tradition cable TV bundle.

    An antenna/DVR combo (if you live close enough to transmitters) and rotating through the various streaming packages will be much cheaper, the only thing it does really cover is sport and with the Bally RSN issues that may be moving to streaming packages quicker than expected.

    • Re:Cable TV-like service has Cable TV-like price r (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @04:59PM (#63376565)

      the only thing it does really cover is sport and with the Bally RSN issues that may be moving to streaming packages quicker than expected.

      Wish these were better priced. The NFL one is $300 a season and you don't even get all the games.

      • Re:Cable TV-like service has Cable TV-like price r (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:46PM (#63376701)

        Yep, was talking with a co-worker about this the other day. If they had a reasonably priced package for the ONE team I actually care about, I'd definitely be in. But someone apparently ran some numbers and decided they don't want on-the-fence people like me, or that there aren't enough of us to be worthwhile

        • 300 bucks is nuts... I have the nba pass for a 100... and that's all the games... and there's a helluva lot more games than in the NFL

        • But do they make enough money to justify the price? For a luxury product this sort of thing happens - you deliberately lose a huge section of the market but also mark up the prices for the few suckers who do nibble on the bait. Possibly it works for Gucci, but does it work for sports when you're not even sitting in the stands?

          • But do they make enough money to justify the price?>

            Its the NFL. They can afford it. They are worth more than soccer.

            • Even mega companies don't want to throw money away; either it's a charity or they're in it for a profit. Possibly they could run it at a loss in order to drive up sales in other areas (stadiums, merch) by making NFL seem exclusive and chic.

        • A lot of people only care about the games of one NFL team. That might be the most normal thing, actually.

          They want to do their best to rope you in more.
        • If it was $100 a season, but I am guaranteed to be able to watch every game no matter what and without any restriction beyond being logged in. No blackout. No regional horseshit. No device lock out. Works on everything that Doom does.

          This is the NFL. That will be more than enough money for them

          • It would make the NFL a ton of money, but with less control. That shows they value control over money, when it comes down to it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ahodgson ( 74077 )

        Hockey too. Sometimes I'll pay for one month for the playoffs. But then I remember how much I hate watching ads.

      • maybe stop wasting your precious neurons on sports?

    • Re:Cable TV-like service has Cable TV-like price r (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:25PM (#63376641)
      Yep, not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. Cable and broadcast network operators are constantly increasing the prices they charge to carry their stations. Even if Google never increases its profit margin it will inevitably go up in price, and continue to, just like regular cable.

      Up side, at least right now, is no contracts, so you can turn it on and off as you like. And no cable boxes to rent.

    • Yeah, it's no surprise - but the bottom seems to be falling out even faster than expected from under all those lucrative cable TV licensing deals with MLB.

      Good riddance to artificial scarcity, I say. Don't let the door hit you on the way out... because I don't want ass prints on my new door!

    • This is the price I paid for a deluxe directtv satellite package before I cut the cored (or cut the rf??). That price for a single channel full of low quality junk is absurd. It's almost like Google priced this based upon a random number generator.

      • Youtube TV is a TV carrier like all the others. It isn't "1 channel of low quality junk" it is hundreds of channels of low quality junk, just like you used to overpay for back in 2001.

        • Ie, on a smart tv or set top device, "Amazon Prime" is one channel, "Netflix" is another channel, etc. So is Youtube TV a huge collection of mulitple Amazons, or just another competitor? If it's just a competitor, why is it ten times the cost and back into the cable TV range of prices?

    • YouTubeTV is really just a cable TV bundle delivered over the internet. It is no real surprise that it's price is behaving in a similar manner to the tradition cable TV bundle.

      An antenna/DVR combo (if you live close enough to transmitters) and rotating through the various streaming packages will be much cheaper, the only thing it does really cover is sport and with the Bally RSN issues that may be moving to streaming packages quicker than expected.

      Well, the virtually unlimited DVR they give you too is so

  • add to that cost (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:00PM (#63376567)
    the price of your internet connection and or cellular data fees too,

  • Suprise me. It's a cable provider now. With SunNFL (Score:5, Informative)

    by byronivs ( 1626319 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:00PM (#63376571) Journal
    Or whatever we are calling channel-bundlers for a fee these days. The "add-ons" are just other streaming services you can also get probably directly for same $. Didn't look, don't care that much.
    To wit, from digitaltrends.com:
    Here are the channels you can watch as part of the main YouTube TV plan, as of February 2023:

    ABC, ABC News Live, ACC Network, AMC, Animal Planet, BBC America, BBC World News, BET, BET Her, Bounce, Bravo, BTN, Cartoon Network, CBS, CBS Sports, Cheddar News, CMT, CNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, Comedy.TV, Comet TV, Court TV, Cozi, Dabl, Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, E!, ESPN, ESPN in 4K, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, Food Network, Fox, Fox Business, Fox News, Fox Soul, Fox Sports 4K, Fox Sports Plus 4K, Fox Weather, Freeform, FS1, FS2, FX, FXM, FXX, Galavision, Game Show Network, GetTV, Golf Channel, Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Drama, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, HGTV, HLN, HSN, ID, IFC, ION, JusticeCentral.TV, LiveNOW, Local Now, MotorTrend, MSNBC, MTV, MTV Classic, MTV2, Nat Ceo, Nat Geo Wild, NBA TV, NBA TV in 4K, NBC, NBC News Now, NBC Sports 4K, NBCLX, NewsNation, NFL Network ,Nick Jr., Nickelodeon, Nicktoons, OWN, Oxygen True Crime, Paramount, PBS, PBS Kids, Pop, QVC, Recipe.TV, Scripps News, SEC Network, Smithsonian Channel, Start TV, Sundance TV, SYFY, Tastemade, TBS, TeenNick, Telemundo, The Weather Channel, TLC, TNT, Travel Channel, truTV, TUDN, Turner Classic Movies, TV Land, TYT Network, UniMas, Universal Kids, Univision, USA, VH1, WE tv.

    • Re:Suprise me. It's a cable provider now. With Sun (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:23PM (#63376637)
      That is a lot of shit I will not watch.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        but so conveniently grouped; now you can not watch all of them on the same service!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeadly ( 602916 )
        Yup. I dropped them after a previous price increase paired with the addition of a dozen channels I didn't want. The platform itself is really impressive, it works really well. But they're being sabotaged by becoming the cable service people seek refuge from. There are some live events that need to be "DVR'd" but the vast majority of broadcast content is back catalog drivel. I don't want 200 channels, I only need one channel that's always showing what I want to see.

    • And every one has advertisements. Why? one tends to subscribe to remove adverts. Makes no sense to me

    • But unlike Comcast, you can easily and effortlessly start/stop streaming services. So you subscribe when there's something to watch and unsubscribe when you no longer need them, even if you plan to sign up again a few months later. Comcast with their "must send out a lazy unmotivated physical installation tech" bullshit plus make you pay for rental of substandard equipment puts them at a huge disadvantage.

  • will we ever (Score:4)

    by ttspttsp ( 7600944 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:06PM (#63376585)
    have true al-carte? I'm pessimistic about the possibility, and wonder why market forces haven't driven us to that. I personally would probably pay a premium on top of whatever my chosen individual channels cost inside a bundle just to get what I want.

    • the mouse said no so you are forced to get ESPN (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:10PM (#63376595)

      the mouse said no so you are forced to get ESPN in just about all plans.

    • have true al-carte? I'm pessimistic about the possibility, and wonder why market forces haven't driven us to that. I personally would probably pay a premium on top of whatever my chosen individual channels cost inside a bundle just to get what I want.

      But bundles amortize cost across channels, so a la carte channels should be expected to be more expensive. The content producers and media distribution companies target a certain amount of revenue both to cover costs and to gain a target profit. Whether that is collected with bundles or a la carte purchases, the sum needs to achieve the target.

      Often what consumers want is to pay less for what they use. That's not a bad thing, as that's one part of the invisible hand of the market. However, it's unrealis

      • But that's wages are. One hour work for a fixed cost. piece-rate would be paying per episode.

      • Not quite. Aside from the "amortise" not being the correct word to describe what you're saying, the reality is not all channels are equal. Some channels generate a pull, other don't. Some channel generate subscription revenue and others advertising revenue. The crap and the good are bundled not because they have to exist and to distribute costs, but rather the crap channels are paying for privilege of being bundled with the good.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      A) No, the content producers won't allow it and B) you probably wouldn't save as much as you think, since popular channels would be priced high anyway.

    • Re:will we ever (Score:4, Funny)

      by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @05:26PM (#63376647) Homepage

      Arr matey, tis truly a question for the ages!

    • Don't all the studios have their own streaming service now? I don't think they're worth $15/mo or whatever but they seem to exist.

      I can't imagine any value to having somebody line up a sequential stream of shows they've chosen to play at specific times.

    • have true al-carte? I'm pessimistic about the possibility, and wonder why market forces haven't driven us to that. I personally would probably pay a premium on top of whatever my chosen individual channels cost inside a bundle just to get what I want.

      Quite a number of years ago there was an estimate as to what each channel would cost al-la-carte and what households tended to watch. The clear winners (lower price) would be those households that watch less than a handful of non-sports channels. The clear losers (higher price) would be anyone who wants sports content (ESPN alone would go up to around $40/mo, and the RSNs around another $30/mo)). And many households would end up paying about the same (unless they went on a serious channel diet).

      And in

      • So for some reason everyone has to subsidize sports fans or get cut off from the common entertainment sources...

        Very annoying.

        • That's 100% Disney's fault, due to how they bundle ESPN and all of their other channels together such as ABC.

    • and wonder why market forces haven't driven us to that

      Because market forces don't favour that. There's a reason that cable companies bundle worthless shit with their premium channels, and it's not because *you* are generating a pull, it's because the worthless shit is pushing. There's no financial incentive to switch to a la carte. Cable companies are getting money from both sides for bundling.

      The economics works out because while premium channels rely on subscription fees, the worthless shit relies on advertisement combined with the fact that they are on your

      • No one would pay for a shopping channel or a TV preacher.

        You're probably right about the shopping channel but a lot of people would pay for the preacher.

    • With the way things are going I don't think i'd want al-carte. Were already going somewhat that way with all the fragmented streaming services where you've got to subscribe to 3 or 4 of them costing you as much as your cable bill since you can't get nearly all of your content at just one. All the studios are spinning up their own platforms and yanking content off Netflix so you got to go subscribe at the studios streaming service as well.

    • Market forces don't stand a chance against the Cable TV monopolies.

    • will we ever have true al-carte? I'm pessimistic about the possibility, and wonder why market forces haven't driven us to that.

      I think you're starting from a wrong assumption- that al-a-carte could be a mechanism to lower your cost. None of the companies involved (production, distribution, whatever) would willingly accept lower overall revenue.

      Only way al-a-carte would be a thing is if they found a way to bring in at least as much $ (probably from you), without making a shift that would threaten future

      • will we ever have true al-carte? I'm pessimistic about the possibility, and wonder why market forces haven't driven us to that.

        I think you're starting from a wrong assumption- that al-a-carte could be a mechanism to lower your cost. None of the companies involved (production, distribution, whatever) would willingly accept lower overall revenue.

        You don't know my starting assumption. I didn't say that I would expect al-carte to lower my cost. In fact, I said the opposite, that I would probably pay whatever premium is involved in order to have real choice.

    • Contrary to the mass delusion: The market doesn't actually care what consumers want. The market will manipulate you into buying what it wants to sell to you. Capitalism!

  • The new monthly price is an $8 increase from the current $64.99 monthly fee. ... To soften the blow, the company announced that it's lowering the price of its 4K Plus add-on from $19.99 per month to $9.99 per month.

    So what I hear you saying is this: You have far more base subscribers than 4K Plus subscribers. Because you make way more profit on 4K Plus subscriptions than you do base subscriptions, you've priced them so closely together with the expectation most of your customer base to say, "Well, it's only $10 more anyways" and upgrade to 4K Plus.

    Yea, I see what you're doing there. The guac is extra. [linkedin.com]

    • Re:So what I hear you saying is... (Score:4)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Thursday March 16, 2023 @06:36PM (#63376787) Journal

      Except here's the problem: they have very few channels that actually broadcast in 4k, so you're really just giving up an extra $10 because you want to. They had a free 30 days back in December and I gave it a go for college football bowl season, and there were like two games I got to watch in 4k. Everything else was still 1080p which my Nvidia Shield TV upscaled to 4k just about as good as their native 4k streams.

      Fuck their $10 upcharge for almost nothing.

  • I mean seriously. Google is now just Comcast... but they don't even have to provide a special box or a cable to my house. How can they justify these continuous price hikes? What value add are they providing?

    • They can't and none.

    • > How can they justify these continuous price hikes?

      People will pay a lot for sedatives. Cheap beer and cable TV. It's almost like they go together.

      Personally I haven't had broadcast or satellite for about 12 years and I look back at it like an alien landscape.

      Video streaming sites are far more interesting. I pay $20 for the family to have YouTube without ads and that's plenty to spend.

      I can rent a movie from Amazon or a Redbox Bluray if I really really want to. Or if it's not commercially available

    • It's likely mostly not Google. Just like a cable company, Google is going to have to have contracts with these networks to carry their programming. These contracts come up for renewal every year and usually means the network hiking their price up which gets passed on to the customer. It's why every few years you see shit on cable like this channel is blacked out due to contract negotiations. Basically neither side wants to budge on their contract terms, The contract expires so the cable company has to cut o

    • There's no value. Just easy price hikes because they can. Their channels raised pricing by about $5/mo per subscriber, cable company gets to throw on a few more dollars for themselves, then tells the customers their rate is going up by $8/mo "due to rising costs of programming". They'll keep this model so long as there are enough remaining subscribers to squeeze.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Youtube and its content providers can keep their content. I didn't drop cable just to be ass-fucked by someone else. Expect bigger increases every year in perpetuity. But remember, you don't have to take it, you can walk away and everything will be okay.

  • Might as well start screwing its customers over like cable companies do.

  • People were paying $65/month??? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Who were these people? Can I sell them a bridge?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by anoncoward69 ( 6496862 )
      AFAIK Google TV is pretty much an alternate cable company, with many of the mainstream linear networks. $65 sounds like a bargain compared to $85 + Cable box rental fee, Extra outlet Fee + Fee, + Fee Fee, + Fee Fee Fee + City tax Fee, County tax Fee, State tax Fee + Well another Fee just cause we feel like it. And now your cable bill is $150 a month.

  • $72.99 a mont for what, exactly? An infinite catalog that's 99.99999999% shit?

    Netflix only costs $20 monthly for the top level (and it's filled to the brim with shit too).

  • Wait ... $72.99/mo? That's $875.88 a year.. WHO THE CRAP IS GONNA PAY THAT?

    • Sadly my 86-year old mom, so she can catch a few baseball games a year and some other random stuff. Need to figure out a better solution for her. Shame it is so messed up.

  • Who would pay these insane prices? They're not in a vacuum!

  • You mean that someone actually paid the old price??
  • I mean the people making these decisions, as well as the price.

    If it was like $10/mo I would consider it, but like fuck am I going to pay >$70/mo for YouTube's ad-scape nightmare and content creator stiffing bullshit.

    That's more than my cell phone bill. For what? For not having ads on YouTube videos? I already have adblock and it probably works better than their service.

  • When YoutubeTV launched in 2017, it was $35 / month. It carried all of the channels that I cared about, and was similarly priced to Slingbox (choosing Orange or Blue), Playstation Vue or AT&T's DirecTV Now. It really was a great option, and service was much more reliable for me than the other options I tried. It had a great core group of stations, and streamed well without experiencing some of the quality and buffering issues of the other service at a competitive price.

    Taking a page out of the cable

  • $72 a month for youtube? Really, real money?
  • Who would want to pay to have garbage imported?

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