6 ms·

Personally I'm delighted to trade ABC, ESPN, etc [1] for a $15 reduction in my YouTube TV bill. It just makes me wish Google would unbundle all their different

Personally I'm delighted to trade ABC, ESPN, etc [1] for a $15 reduction in my YouTube TV bill. It just makes me wish Google would unbundle all their different providers so I could choose only the ones I want. [1] Your local ABC channel, ABC News Live, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, FX, FXX, FXM, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 (by authentication to the ESPN app), ESPNU, ESPNEWS SEC Network, ACC Network.

14 5y ago
I don't have YouTube Tv but your comment almost made me dry heave a little realizing we are back at square one with cable tv and bundling channels users don't want and forcing them to pay for stuff. I haven't had cable tv in years but seldom don't miss a show I want to watch. It is mostly all online if you know where to search. Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading.
- taurath 5y ago
  Sports is the anchor by which unbundling won’t happen for a long time, especially with linear TV. This is partially because it benefits the conglomerates business models to have as many channels and content streams as possible to sell ad time on, and partially because for sports teams they can functionally name their price. In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). Why would a brand new team with no established fan base want to not be in front of as many eyeballs as they can? Because they earn more money when someone pays them to put them behind a cable company. At no point does this “competition”, which it isn’t, benefit consumers. We used to regulate things like this.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    I've not looked into how the US cable market is doing, but here in Denmark it feels like we're very close to cable/bundling snapping. The cable companies are forced to raise prices each year, mostly because of sports and people are cancelling in droves. In 2015 93% of Danes had cable, in 2019 less than 80% had cable and during 2020 - 2022 the largest provider lost at least 250.000 subscribers, pushing them well below 1 million subscribers. Many others have downgrade their subscription to the bundles that doesn't include sports channels. At some point the remaining subscribers can't pay the cost of the ridiculous fees charged for the major sporting events. When that happens the fees must come down, or the sporting companies must find a different solution. Honestly a great solution for the major sports, like football in Europe, would be to great something like what the MLB did in the US. I know a lot of football fans who'd love to get a subscription for all the Champions League games. Just a fixed price and then watch any game you like. Why pay for Formula 1, hockey or even the Bundesliga, if you only care about the Danish Superliga and Champions League.
    - taurath 5y ago
      In the US American football only recently became available on streaming - it is currently $450 or $500 per season. You can go to a bar every week and have several drinks and a meal for that money. It’s a little crazy.
      - mrweasel 5y ago
        $500 a year is still at around half the price of cable tv where I live, if you want any sport, largest cable package would be $1213 per year. So you could get all the games you wanted to see, rather than just the ones the TV stations decided to buy, and still have money left over to subscribe to a few streaming services. Edit: Something something, cost of living. $500 is 3300DKK, which would let you go to a bar, have a meal and four or five beers only seven times.
        Ar-Curunir 5y ago
        A meal and 5 beers cost $70 in Denmark? That's expensive.
        mrweasel 5y ago
        Sorry, haven't been out for a while, I was wrong about the price of beer. It has gone up. The five beers (0.5L) is $43.95, leaving $26 that's going to be a rather cheap meal, you're certainly not eating at the bar on game day at that point. You could get ribs or a burger at a restaurant, but you're a little short if you want steak.... And you don't exactly have money for a drink with your meal.
        matwood 5y ago
        All the Scandinavian countries are expensive (when converting from USD), especially for alcohol.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Where is this streaming option available for $500? I do not see it on nfl.com If it is subject to blackouts, it does not count. https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/ https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/
  - sofixa 5y ago
    Regarding sports, there are companies such as DAZN and Amazon which break the bundling. They get the rights for a certain sport/league in a country, and if you want to watch, you pay only for that, directly.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    In the Chicago area I just about lost my crud with the new "Marquee Sports Network". It's a $7 a month price hike that every subscriber in the area has to suffer on every single cable provider because the Cubs struck a deal with Sinclair to create the channel. I don't understand how it's legal. Imagine if Netflix could force everyone in a geographic area to subscribe or lose the ability to stream all non-Netflix stuff. It wouldn't even make sense, but this is what happened here. I think we should kick the Cubs out of Chicago for pulling a stunt like this during a pandemic when most people are barely able to pay their existing bills. Sports teams are absolute vampires that abuse the local population in the name of obscene profits.
    - owlninja 5y ago
      Sinclair also ruined us here in DFW. Suddenly the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars are only available on Bally's network which the big streamers do not carry. We used to be able to watch all games on the regional Fox Sports network which was a huge selling point for me switching to streaming. Now the word is Bally's expects to release their own app and subscription service in like 2023...sigh...
  - brewdad 5y ago
    >> In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). It's actually worse than that. I've looked into it, because I'd like to watch Mariners and Kraken games in Portland (blacked out here too). Root Sportsis only available through cable providers and FuboTV or Directv Stream. No other streaming services offer it and there is no way to subscribe directly. It's a mess, so I generally don't watch the games or pirate them.
- technofiend 5y ago
  Right? I used to just turn on YouTube TV for hurricane season for local coverage in case of a power outage. It's far easier to keep a cell phone charged than deal with a digital antenna (which might have been lost to high winds anyway) and relatively power hungry TV just to see what's going on. Then my wife started using the app too so I can't easily turn it off. Back when Big Ugly Dishes were a thing it was far cheaper to piecemeal subscribe to your desired packages. Then DirecTV came along and forced the cable tv model on their subscribers and lobbied hard for laws that killed BUDs. I remember doing the math at the time and DirecTV was about double the price of a BUD. Now we're back to adhoc subscription if you want to use a bunch of disparate apps and websites, so in one way it could be cheaper. But each streaming site charges retail prices to consumers so in aggregate it ends up costing as much or more than in the cable model. Even so the forced subsidy of ESPN in particular has always been a deeply aggravating thing for me. Sort of like agreeing to split lunch evenly and then discovering after the fact everyone's having sandwiches except the one guy who ordered steak.
  - hx833001 5y ago
    Check for local news apps/websites and also national network news apps if they own your local station. Some provide access year round, and your local stations will almost certainly have live storm coverage. I can watch multiple local stations during a storm for free on Apple TV
- causi 5y ago
  Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading. Sure about that? https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trolls-suing-thousands-of-canadians-for-file-sharing https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trol...
  - 14 5y ago
    I have heard this but last I heard, not sure a source or time to search right now, that the courts have been favoring our side and don't really want the average Canadian being sued. They are going after the commercial entities reselling these services like streaming site operators. The thing is to download only which sucks because it is not nice to be a leech. At this point in time very few people worry about it. Back in the day I used to download hundreds of GB per month in video games movies and tv shows. Now I will find the odd movie I never had a chance to watch.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  I hate bundling. I have been paying my cable company money for football and Formula one. I don't watch that stuff. How about we just pay for the things we use? Imagine if a restaurant put a bottle of wine on your bill even though you don't like wine.
ekianjo 5y ago
> Personally I'm delighted to trade ABC, ESPN, etc [1] for a $15 reduction in my YouTube TV bill. It just makes me wish Google would unbundle all their different providers so I could choose only the ones I want. They could make several tiers: - Youtubers-only content: no big media included - Tier 2: the same + ABC, ESPN, etc... - Tier 3: same as 2 + exclusive content only available for Tier 3 subscribers would be a good business model rather than just charging to remove ads.
- treyfitty 5y ago
  …like cable TV?
  - nkozyra 5y ago
    Cable doesn't offer this, generally, because ESPN subsidizes so many other channels and Disney has a lot of power here. They strongarm a lot of providers and I'd be surprised if YouTube held out. They will lose subscribers.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      It's not really because ESPN "subsidizes" other channels. ESPN is expensive. It's because sports is the primary hook for a lot of people to continue getting broadcast/cable TV at all outside of on-demand subscriptions. It's not enough of a hook for me to pay but, if I were to do so, it would be the main reason.
      - nkozyra 5y ago
        What I meant by subsidizes is that it is the hook that allows the others to exist at a smaller profit margin.
- judge2020 5y ago
  This is another comment confusing YT with YT TV. www.youtube.com didn’t lose anything - tv.youtube.com did, which is cable TV over the internet, and it’s just like any other channel dispute that has happened in years past with traditional cable offerings.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
paxys 5y ago
Curious what the remaining value of YouTube TV even is then. With most sports cut out is it really worth $50/mo?
- systematical 5y ago
  No, I only used it during football season and now I'm out Monday Night Football. They had already made it harder to set my location to my teams local market (still possible with vpn + location guard but not on TV without chromecasting). With the season nearly over and the Giants season completely over I will probably just cancel early.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    All football other than monday is on over the air, all you need is an antenna or twitch.tv on thursdays.
- ghaff 5y ago
  There's also late night talk shows, reality TV, etc. I don't really watch any of this and, hence, don't get cable TV any longer but many do. I think just having something on in the background is appealing to some (although there are alternatives to that). My sense is that there's very little really interesting scripted TV on non-premium streaming broadcast/cable at this point. I certainly haven't heard of any "must see TV" on any of the networks or even stations like AMC for ages.
- phil21 5y ago
  Zero value to me now that ESPN (Monday Night Football) is off the platform. I hate it, but I really do pay that much per month to watch a single game a week plus have the convenience for guests having access to "regular TV".
- Tagbert 5y ago
  ESPN has a value of zero to me. Can’t be bothered to watch it. I get YouTube TV for all of the other stuff.
maxclark 5y ago
And here's the problem with cable and the OTT providers as well. The content networks force an all or nothing contract. ESPN must be licensed for all subscribers or no ESPN option for anyone. The same thing that forced me off of cable has forced me off of OTT.
phil21 5y ago
Thing is I would be delighted the the opposite. I'd love to only pay for ESPN and the other sports channels only for $15/mo. Maybe add in CNN/FOX/MSNBC/Etc. for the wife to have on in the background, but plenty of ways to get that otherwise cheaply. OTA works fine for local news, even if the apps are a bit buggy if you want anything DVR or digitally distributed. As would likely most I believe. Thus sports propping up this ancient model and myself being part of the problem. I'm surprised Disney/ESPN is only $15/mo of the bill to be honest, I think Youtube is taking a hit there as I'd bet it's more than half the total base subscription fee.
- uptown 5y ago
  "I'm surprised Disney/ESPN is only $15/mo of the bill to be honest" It's probably more. They're just happy to keep your money.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    $15 sounds about right. It may even be closer to $20. The reason we won't see a full ESPN only subscription anytime soon is that the current model allows them to collect $15/mo from everyone versus whatever the price would need to be if you are only selling subs to sports fans. It wouldn't surprise me if the subscription cost would be over $100/mo to keep the same revenues. What happens to big time sports when the fans are priced out of the arena and priced out of watching on TV as well?
- gausswho 5y ago
  ESPN will be the last to offer their own subscription, because then people would know how much they are getting away with in broadcast programming. YouTube is almost certainly paying more. Decades of strongarming TV networks has allowed Disney/ESPN to soak up 40%-60% of traditional cable bills at the expense of all other content owners. YT is taking a gamble that backed by the weight of Alphabet they can end this corruption. Sadly, I'm not sure it's a smart bet.
  - humanistbot 5y ago
paul_f 5y ago
Youtube TV would GLADLY unbundle ESPN. Disney will not allow it. Disney insists that every Youtube TV subscriber pays for ESPN or nobody gets it. Google is fairly asking that whatever price they pay for ESPN, that no other streaming service (including Hulu which Disney owns) gets a better price. Disney said no. This is the fundamental reason Google does not now have an agreement with Disney for the channels.

14 5y ago

I don't have YouTube Tv but your comment almost made me dry heave a little realizing we are back at square one with cable tv and bundling channels users don't want and forcing them to pay for stuff. I haven't had cable tv in years but seldom don't miss a show I want to watch. It is mostly all online if you know where to search. Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading.

taurath 5y ago
Sports is the anchor by which unbundling won’t happen for a long time, especially with linear TV. This is partially because it benefits the conglomerates business models to have as many channels and content streams as possible to sell ad time on, and partially because for sports teams they can functionally name their price. In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). Why would a brand new team with no established fan base want to not be in front of as many eyeballs as they can? Because they earn more money when someone pays them to put them behind a cable company. At no point does this “competition”, which it isn’t, benefit consumers. We used to regulate things like this.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  I've not looked into how the US cable market is doing, but here in Denmark it feels like we're very close to cable/bundling snapping. The cable companies are forced to raise prices each year, mostly because of sports and people are cancelling in droves. In 2015 93% of Danes had cable, in 2019 less than 80% had cable and during 2020 - 2022 the largest provider lost at least 250.000 subscribers, pushing them well below 1 million subscribers. Many others have downgrade their subscription to the bundles that doesn't include sports channels. At some point the remaining subscribers can't pay the cost of the ridiculous fees charged for the major sporting events. When that happens the fees must come down, or the sporting companies must find a different solution. Honestly a great solution for the major sports, like football in Europe, would be to great something like what the MLB did in the US. I know a lot of football fans who'd love to get a subscription for all the Champions League games. Just a fixed price and then watch any game you like. Why pay for Formula 1, hockey or even the Bundesliga, if you only care about the Danish Superliga and Champions League.
  - taurath 5y ago
    In the US American football only recently became available on streaming - it is currently $450 or $500 per season. You can go to a bar every week and have several drinks and a meal for that money. It’s a little crazy.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      $500 a year is still at around half the price of cable tv where I live, if you want any sport, largest cable package would be $1213 per year. So you could get all the games you wanted to see, rather than just the ones the TV stations decided to buy, and still have money left over to subscribe to a few streaming services. Edit: Something something, cost of living. $500 is 3300DKK, which would let you go to a bar, have a meal and four or five beers only seven times.
      - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
        A meal and 5 beers cost $70 in Denmark? That's expensive.
        mrweasel 5y ago
        Sorry, haven't been out for a while, I was wrong about the price of beer. It has gone up. The five beers (0.5L) is $43.95, leaving $26 that's going to be a rather cheap meal, you're certainly not eating at the bar on game day at that point. You could get ribs or a burger at a restaurant, but you're a little short if you want steak.... And you don't exactly have money for a drink with your meal.
        matwood 5y ago
        All the Scandinavian countries are expensive (when converting from USD), especially for alcohol.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Where is this streaming option available for $500? I do not see it on nfl.com If it is subject to blackouts, it does not count. https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/ https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/
- sofixa 5y ago
  Regarding sports, there are companies such as DAZN and Amazon which break the bundling. They get the rights for a certain sport/league in a country, and if you want to watch, you pay only for that, directly.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  In the Chicago area I just about lost my crud with the new "Marquee Sports Network". It's a $7 a month price hike that every subscriber in the area has to suffer on every single cable provider because the Cubs struck a deal with Sinclair to create the channel. I don't understand how it's legal. Imagine if Netflix could force everyone in a geographic area to subscribe or lose the ability to stream all non-Netflix stuff. It wouldn't even make sense, but this is what happened here. I think we should kick the Cubs out of Chicago for pulling a stunt like this during a pandemic when most people are barely able to pay their existing bills. Sports teams are absolute vampires that abuse the local population in the name of obscene profits.
  - owlninja 5y ago
    Sinclair also ruined us here in DFW. Suddenly the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars are only available on Bally's network which the big streamers do not carry. We used to be able to watch all games on the regional Fox Sports network which was a huge selling point for me switching to streaming. Now the word is Bally's expects to release their own app and subscription service in like 2023...sigh...
- brewdad 5y ago
  >> In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). It's actually worse than that. I've looked into it, because I'd like to watch Mariners and Kraken games in Portland (blacked out here too). Root Sportsis only available through cable providers and FuboTV or Directv Stream. No other streaming services offer it and there is no way to subscribe directly. It's a mess, so I generally don't watch the games or pirate them.
technofiend 5y ago
Right? I used to just turn on YouTube TV for hurricane season for local coverage in case of a power outage. It's far easier to keep a cell phone charged than deal with a digital antenna (which might have been lost to high winds anyway) and relatively power hungry TV just to see what's going on. Then my wife started using the app too so I can't easily turn it off. Back when Big Ugly Dishes were a thing it was far cheaper to piecemeal subscribe to your desired packages. Then DirecTV came along and forced the cable tv model on their subscribers and lobbied hard for laws that killed BUDs. I remember doing the math at the time and DirecTV was about double the price of a BUD. Now we're back to adhoc subscription if you want to use a bunch of disparate apps and websites, so in one way it could be cheaper. But each streaming site charges retail prices to consumers so in aggregate it ends up costing as much or more than in the cable model. Even so the forced subsidy of ESPN in particular has always been a deeply aggravating thing for me. Sort of like agreeing to split lunch evenly and then discovering after the fact everyone's having sandwiches except the one guy who ordered steak.
- hx833001 5y ago
  Check for local news apps/websites and also national network news apps if they own your local station. Some provide access year round, and your local stations will almost certainly have live storm coverage. I can watch multiple local stations during a storm for free on Apple TV
causi 5y ago
Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading. Sure about that? https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trolls-suing-thousands-of-canadians-for-file-sharing https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trol...
- 14 5y ago
  I have heard this but last I heard, not sure a source or time to search right now, that the courts have been favoring our side and don't really want the average Canadian being sued. They are going after the commercial entities reselling these services like streaming site operators. The thing is to download only which sucks because it is not nice to be a leech. At this point in time very few people worry about it. Back in the day I used to download hundreds of GB per month in video games movies and tv shows. Now I will find the odd movie I never had a chance to watch.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
I hate bundling. I have been paying my cable company money for football and Formula one. I don't watch that stuff. How about we just pay for the things we use? Imagine if a restaurant put a bottle of wine on your bill even though you don't like wine.

ekianjo 5y ago

> Personally I'm delighted to trade ABC, ESPN, etc [1] for a $15 reduction in my YouTube TV bill. It just makes me wish Google would unbundle all their different providers so I could choose only the ones I want. They could make several tiers: - Youtubers-only content: no big media included - Tier 2: the same + ABC, ESPN, etc... - Tier 3: same as 2 + exclusive content only available for Tier 3 subscribers would be a good business model rather than just charging to remove ads.

treyfitty 5y ago
…like cable TV?
- nkozyra 5y ago
  Cable doesn't offer this, generally, because ESPN subsidizes so many other channels and Disney has a lot of power here. They strongarm a lot of providers and I'd be surprised if YouTube held out. They will lose subscribers.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    It's not really because ESPN "subsidizes" other channels. ESPN is expensive. It's because sports is the primary hook for a lot of people to continue getting broadcast/cable TV at all outside of on-demand subscriptions. It's not enough of a hook for me to pay but, if I were to do so, it would be the main reason.
    - nkozyra 5y ago
      What I meant by subsidizes is that it is the hook that allows the others to exist at a smaller profit margin.
judge2020 5y ago
This is another comment confusing YT with YT TV. www.youtube.com didn’t lose anything - tv.youtube.com did, which is cable TV over the internet, and it’s just like any other channel dispute that has happened in years past with traditional cable offerings.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

paxys 5y ago

Curious what the remaining value of YouTube TV even is then. With most sports cut out is it really worth $50/mo?

systematical 5y ago
No, I only used it during football season and now I'm out Monday Night Football. They had already made it harder to set my location to my teams local market (still possible with vpn + location guard but not on TV without chromecasting). With the season nearly over and the Giants season completely over I will probably just cancel early.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  All football other than monday is on over the air, all you need is an antenna or twitch.tv on thursdays.
ghaff 5y ago
There's also late night talk shows, reality TV, etc. I don't really watch any of this and, hence, don't get cable TV any longer but many do. I think just having something on in the background is appealing to some (although there are alternatives to that). My sense is that there's very little really interesting scripted TV on non-premium streaming broadcast/cable at this point. I certainly haven't heard of any "must see TV" on any of the networks or even stations like AMC for ages.
phil21 5y ago
Zero value to me now that ESPN (Monday Night Football) is off the platform. I hate it, but I really do pay that much per month to watch a single game a week plus have the convenience for guests having access to "regular TV".
Tagbert 5y ago
ESPN has a value of zero to me. Can’t be bothered to watch it. I get YouTube TV for all of the other stuff.

maxclark 5y ago

And here's the problem with cable and the OTT providers as well. The content networks force an all or nothing contract. ESPN must be licensed for all subscribers or no ESPN option for anyone. The same thing that forced me off of cable has forced me off of OTT.

phil21 5y ago

Thing is I would be delighted the the opposite. I'd love to only pay for ESPN and the other sports channels only for $15/mo. Maybe add in CNN/FOX/MSNBC/Etc. for the wife to have on in the background, but plenty of ways to get that otherwise cheaply. OTA works fine for local news, even if the apps are a bit buggy if you want anything DVR or digitally distributed. As would likely most I believe. Thus sports propping up this ancient model and myself being part of the problem. I'm surprised Disney/ESPN is only $15/mo of the bill to be honest, I think Youtube is taking a hit there as I'd bet it's more than half the total base subscription fee.

uptown 5y ago
"I'm surprised Disney/ESPN is only $15/mo of the bill to be honest" It's probably more. They're just happy to keep your money.
- brewdad 5y ago
  $15 sounds about right. It may even be closer to $20. The reason we won't see a full ESPN only subscription anytime soon is that the current model allows them to collect $15/mo from everyone versus whatever the price would need to be if you are only selling subs to sports fans. It wouldn't surprise me if the subscription cost would be over $100/mo to keep the same revenues. What happens to big time sports when the fans are priced out of the arena and priced out of watching on TV as well?
gausswho 5y ago
ESPN will be the last to offer their own subscription, because then people would know how much they are getting away with in broadcast programming. YouTube is almost certainly paying more. Decades of strongarming TV networks has allowed Disney/ESPN to soak up 40%-60% of traditional cable bills at the expense of all other content owners. YT is taking a gamble that backed by the weight of Alphabet they can end this corruption. Sadly, I'm not sure it's a smart bet.
- humanistbot 5y ago

paul_f 5y ago

Youtube TV would GLADLY unbundle ESPN. Disney will not allow it. Disney insists that every Youtube TV subscriber pays for ESPN or nobody gets it. Google is fairly asking that whatever price they pay for ESPN, that no other streaming service (including Hulu which Disney owns) gets a better price. Disney said no. This is the fundamental reason Google does not now have an agreement with Disney for the channels.