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Youtube Television

YouTube Has Become One of the Biggest Pay TV Services in the US (businessinsider.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the aggressive-expansion dept.
Google has been trying to break into TV for close to two decades. It's here now: Its YouTube TV offering has become one of the biggest pay-TV services in the US. Business Insider: YouTube TV -- which, like conventional pay TV, sells a bundle of dozens of channels -- now has "more than 8 million" subscribers, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced Tuesday morning. That makes YouTube the fourth-largest pay TV service in the country, behind Charter and Comcast (14.1 million each) and DirecTV, at around 11 million.

YouTube last disclosed subscriber numbers in 2022, when YouTube TV had 5 million customers. It likely got a meaningful boost last fall when it started selling the NFL's Sunday Ticket service as an add-on to its basic package of TV channels. YouTube's ascent into the mainstream of pay TV represents a couple of things. For starters, it shows you that YouTube and its owner Google have been persistent and patient about trying to crack TV, and its enormous twin revenue streams: subscriptions and ads.
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YouTube Has Become One of the Biggest Pay TV Services in the US More

YouTube Has Become One of the Biggest Pay TV Services in the US

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  • Because they have what people want.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @03:17PM (#64220220)
    That's because, for now, they have what people want. But as the streaming services see them as a threat they will remove their content from google and remove stations as well. I used google TV because it was the only way for me to easily watch the NFL, and it had everything else as a package. That's exactly why I only use shitty services like netflix, paramount, apple TV et. al. for a month at a time. They've stratified themselves so heavily that each only has a show or two that I want to watch.

    • Re:Because they have what people want.... (Score:4)

      by muh_freeze_peach ( 9622152 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @03:22PM (#64220244)
      They offer the exact same thing as cable for the exact same price.

      • Nah, cable TV with all the channels costs at least $300/mo after promos run out. You can subscribe to nearly every streaming service at once for that price.

        Streaming is not nearly the great deal it once was, but still far better than Comcast bullshit. Especially since cable TV still goes up in price every year even more than the streaming services.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HBI ( 10338492 )

          It's all a negative feedback loop. They lose subscribers due to the expense, or death of the subscribers, and they need to jack up prices to maintain revenue.

          The slow roll of industry-wide collapse is going to be intriguing to watch. The gnashing of teeth about piracy should be reminiscent of the RIAA.

      • They offer the exact same thing as cable for the exact same price.

        Which "they"? There are a number of "live TV streaming services": YouTube TV, Fubo, Sling, and a few others. Those all have about the same features and prices. The big things is they have live sports, news, and talk shows/late night. Most of that is not available on traditional streaming services (YouTube proper, Netflix, etc.), particularly sports. And sports is a killer product because I want to see the game without knowing the final score. That means I more or less have to watch it live.

        Problem is, they

        • While waiting for Google to play ball which may never happen Silicon Dust may have what you are looking for

          https://www.silicondust.com/hd... [silicondust.com]

          • While waiting for Google to play ball which may never happen Silicon Dust may have what you are looking for

            https://www.silicondust.com/hd... [silicondust.com]

            Thanks for the pointer. I don't think that's quite what I'm looking for. I still need to program a "DVR" to record the games I care about. If I hear about a really exciting game after the fact, I'm out of luck.

            BTW, I don't think it's Google which is not playing ball. I'm sure it's the contracts between the sports leagues and networks. They have exclusive broadcast rights, which means the leagues can't offer game streaming themselves (which I totally would pay for). The only way Silicon Dust works is by reco

        • Problem is, they all operate on the "cloud DVR" model, which is not what I'm looking for. I have to "program" my cloud DVR to record a show ahead of time and I only get to keep a limited number of recorded events. If I forget to program a recording, I'm out of luck. If the game starts late or runs long, I'm also SOL. It's really lousy from a usability perspective.

          Again, which "they"? Youtube TV has none of these limitations. YTTV allows virtually unlimited storage of any amount of shows/events. While it is true that you would probably have to mark the Super Bowl to record, series programs you can add at any time and the service will catch the ones from the past automagically. For sports ball, you can add your favorite teams and it'll record all their games (when they're available).

          • Again, which "they"? Youtube TV has none of these limitations. YTTV allows virtually unlimited storage of any amount of shows/events. While it is true that you would probably have to mark the Super Bowl to record,

            That's exactly the limitation I care about. I wasn't aware YTTV didn't have capacity limits, that's something I'll have to look into the next year the Sharks don't suck.

            ...series programs you can add at any time and the service will catch the ones from the past automagically. For sports ball, you can add your favorite teams and it'll record all their games (when they're available).

            That's not been my experience. Adding a series didn't get me past episodes (although honestly, I don't watch enough seasonal shows to care). Recording all a team's games was a hit-or-miss proposition and also didn't get historical games. Why do I say it was hit or miss? I watch the San Jose Sharks^H^H^H^H^H^HGuppies and those games are norma

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bgarcia ( 33222 )

              I'm currently subscribed to Fubo (because they're the only service to offer Pittsburgh Sportsnet). I told it to record a show, and it is definitely recording reruns. I haven't had it cut off the end of a game that has run longer than planned. And this basic plan has a 1000-hour limit on recordings. I'm not sure how you would find that limiting, unless you like to record a lot of shows that you'll never get around to actually watching.

              • I'm currently subscribed to Fubo (because they're the only service to offer Pittsburgh Sportsnet). I told it to record a show, and it is definitely recording reruns. I haven't had it cut off the end of a game that has run longer than planned. And this basic plan has a 1000-hour limit on recordings. I'm not sure how you would find that limiting, unless you like to record a lot of shows that you'll never get around to actually watching.

                I see. Yeah, if I programmed Fubu to record all episodes of Friends (or in my case, This Old House), it definitely recorded any new or rerun episodes broadcast after I programmed it. But what I want is more like how Netflix or Amazon handles shows they produce: as soon as I express interest in a show, the entire catalog of past episodes is immediately available to me so I can binge from the beginning.

                To be specific, I'd express interest in the Sharks and have available a catalog of 30 years of games, the go

      • No, I pay 72.99 for channels I want. To get the same channels from Cox or ATT It would cost me 3x that AND in addition I'd have to deal with an Extra 100 channels of nothing but sales... Vacuum cleaners, Steak knives whatever. They would tell me I was getting 400 channels!!! I'm like I only want these few channels. It was a complete Scam. Youtube tv is a FAR FAR better deal than ANY cable or satellite tv package.

        • I'm staring at my continually rising Comcast bill and considering YTTV. How's the DVR experience? I have a Tivo and it's a shame to switch off it to cloud

  • Now that everyone is paying (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @03:24PM (#64220248)

    We can slip in some "short" commercials.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      YouTube TV is basically the streaming version of Cable TV, so it already has a bunch of commercials.

      They do have "zen" moments with pretty beach scenes and whatnot where the channel identifier breaks used to go. I could see more of those getting filled by advertising. I mean, it's Google... "Do No Evil" only applies to their business models until they get a leadership position.

      • It also functions as a DVR on whatever you're watching. So if you start watching the show a bit later than it's start time, you can just shout: "Hey Siri, go forward four minutes." and Tivo your way past said commercials.

  • Its my favorite app, and shocked its a paid service Google offers. It works so well and I can watch traditional TV easily on any device/screen. I cant stand searching for stuff to watch, just turn on a channel and \leave it as background noise without having to skip ads on Youtube or searching for crap on Netflix.

    • YouTube from a business practice perspective has it's issues

      YouTube as a platform to serve video content from really has no competitor, it beats every other streaming platform in terms of speed, features and stability in my opinion. Even YouTube live is a fantastic streaming platform that in a lot of ways is superior to Twitch, it's just nobody really uses it.

    • I did a trial and it was pretty nice, but for the cost I think cable TV + the provider's app would've cost less. The cloud DVR though was a nifty feature.

  • YouTube in Canada is still the same service it was last decade.

  • I switched from DIRECTV to YouTubeTV (Score:4, Informative)

    by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @04:07PM (#64220364)
    Partially for Sunday Ticket, but also just because my DIRECTV account had been broken for a while (screen to add/remove channels didn't work) and I got tired of trying to get them to fix it. It's good, there's a lot to like. Not having channel numbers takes some getting used to but being able to sort channels however I want is nice. Two things I do not like: having it tied to a single Google account means having my personal account logged in everywhere. Family sharing would be nice. Second, there's no "pick up where I left off" button for sports. It's either live or from the start.

    • YouTube TV does have family sharing. You have to configure it in your browser though, not on yout AppleTV or whatever.

      First, sign into tv.youtube.com in your browser and then click on the button at the top-right of the screen... for me it shows the first letter of my first name. From there, click settings. And then on the menu on the left, you should see the Family Sharing link. From there, click on "Manage" and it will open a new tab from which you can invite up to 5 other people. They will all also b

  • Learned how to watch any sports event for free and cut off DishTV 15 years ago. No restrictions. It got where we only watched 2-4 Chanels out of 250, wasn't worth it. YouTube TV and the new sports pkg isn't something I need..to pay for.

  • I had a friend living in a rural area who was finally able to switch from satellite internet to service from a T-Mobile tower. He was testing out Hulu, but he was running into problems where it kept thinking his location had changed (due to the dynamic IP address). VPN didn't really help since he wanted certain local stations, and the VPN city choices were all far away. He ended up going with YouTube TV.

    According to the TM 5G Home Internet FAQ: "Streaming services that rely on IP address for specific loc

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