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YouTube TV is a separate $65/month subscription. Seems like an absurdly high price relative to Hulu or Netflix, but it’s meant to compete more with local cable

YouTube TV is a separate $65/month subscription. Seems like an absurdly high price relative to Hulu or Netflix, but it’s meant to compete more with local cable packages. Without the premium content, it’s hard to do that. I think the content providers know this and are trying to squeeze YouTube into giving more of their profits to the content providers. Either that, or to raise prices to be similar to cable. YouTube TV is claiming Disney content added $15/month to the bill, so they’re dropping the price by $15/month as long as Disney is out: > “We will be decreasing our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99 while this content remains off of our platform,” YouTube TV said in its Friday night statement.

daigoba66 5y ago
> so they’re dropping the price by $15/month as long as Disney is out FWIW, I can’t see any traditional cable TV provider doing this. They might even charge an extra fee as a cherry on top.
- heartbreak 5y ago
  Not only did they drop the price, but in the email they referred subscribers to the Disney+ package that includes Hulu and ESPN.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    That's actually the reason for the price drop: They are giving you money to get Disney+ so you don't just cancel your YouTube TV subscription and go elsewhere. It's a retention move that they accept a short lack of their cut of the Disney portion in exchange for not losing customers entirely.
    - CryptoBanker 5y ago
      It’s not comparable. Disney+ doesn’t include any live content
      - cschmidt 5y ago
        Exactly. These are the live stations being dropped: ABC ABC News Live Disney Channel Disney Junior Disney XD ESPN ESPN2 ESPNU ESPNEWS Freeform FX FXX FXM National Geographic National Geographic Wild SEC Network Of those, the Disney bundle would only cover the sports channels on ESPN+ (I'm assuming it has all the cames broadcast on the channels.) Edit: according to other comments ESPN+ doesn't even cover all the sports on the ESPN2 and ESPN3 channels.
        zaptrem 5y ago
        Doesn't D+ include all of the shows from all of those networks except for FX and ABC?
dreyfan 5y ago
Hulu + LiveTV is $65 and Sling is about $50 and Youtube TV $65. These aren’t really comparable to standard Hulu or Netflix or Amazon Prime etc. It’s for people that want to pretend they’re cord-cutting while buying the exact same thing from a streaming company.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And because you're buying essentially the same content package, there's no reason one would expect it to be significantly cheaper just because it's streamed. As a content package, it's evolved to be something largely different from what you get from the streaming services like Netflix. It's largely sports, news/talk shows, and reality TV and other relatively low-cost lightly scripted/unscripted content, some documentaries... You still have some traditional network content but it's been a while since I've even heard of a network drama or comedy of note.
  - mcot2 5y ago
    Netflix with all their cash still has basically nothing for live news/talk shows and sports. It’s bizarre.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Sports that a mass audience wants to watch is expensive (hence the OP). And establishing a news/talk show brand that people would subscribe to Netflix to get wouldn't be easy (and is probably a very different thing than acting as the studio for scripted shows). [ADDED: And honestly some politically polarized crap would be far more likely to fit that bill than historical network news organizations, however relatively superficial they were in some ways.] Remember Netflix' incentives are very different from a network. Netflix wants to acquire and retain subscribers which tends to favor stickier content rather than filling up a schedule with programming that people will tune into out of habit. Put another way, the network business model is essentially a legacy model. I'm not sure why Netflix would want to recreate an uber-Network.
    - thetinguy 5y ago

daigoba66 5y ago

> so they’re dropping the price by $15/month as long as Disney is out FWIW, I can’t see any traditional cable TV provider doing this. They might even charge an extra fee as a cherry on top.

heartbreak 5y ago
Not only did they drop the price, but in the email they referred subscribers to the Disney+ package that includes Hulu and ESPN.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  That's actually the reason for the price drop: They are giving you money to get Disney+ so you don't just cancel your YouTube TV subscription and go elsewhere. It's a retention move that they accept a short lack of their cut of the Disney portion in exchange for not losing customers entirely.
  - CryptoBanker 5y ago
    It’s not comparable. Disney+ doesn’t include any live content
    - cschmidt 5y ago
      Exactly. These are the live stations being dropped: ABC ABC News Live Disney Channel Disney Junior Disney XD ESPN ESPN2 ESPNU ESPNEWS Freeform FX FXX FXM National Geographic National Geographic Wild SEC Network Of those, the Disney bundle would only cover the sports channels on ESPN+ (I'm assuming it has all the cames broadcast on the channels.) Edit: according to other comments ESPN+ doesn't even cover all the sports on the ESPN2 and ESPN3 channels.
      - zaptrem 5y ago
        Doesn't D+ include all of the shows from all of those networks except for FX and ABC?

dreyfan 5y ago

Hulu + LiveTV is $65 and Sling is about $50 and Youtube TV $65. These aren’t really comparable to standard Hulu or Netflix or Amazon Prime etc. It’s for people that want to pretend they’re cord-cutting while buying the exact same thing from a streaming company.

ghaff 5y ago
And because you're buying essentially the same content package, there's no reason one would expect it to be significantly cheaper just because it's streamed. As a content package, it's evolved to be something largely different from what you get from the streaming services like Netflix. It's largely sports, news/talk shows, and reality TV and other relatively low-cost lightly scripted/unscripted content, some documentaries... You still have some traditional network content but it's been a while since I've even heard of a network drama or comedy of note.
- mcot2 5y ago
  Netflix with all their cash still has basically nothing for live news/talk shows and sports. It’s bizarre.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Sports that a mass audience wants to watch is expensive (hence the OP). And establishing a news/talk show brand that people would subscribe to Netflix to get wouldn't be easy (and is probably a very different thing than acting as the studio for scripted shows). [ADDED: And honestly some politically polarized crap would be far more likely to fit that bill than historical network news organizations, however relatively superficial they were in some ways.] Remember Netflix' incentives are very different from a network. Netflix wants to acquire and retain subscribers which tends to favor stickier content rather than filling up a schedule with programming that people will tune into out of habit. Put another way, the network business model is essentially a legacy model. I'm not sure why Netflix would want to recreate an uber-Network.
  - thetinguy 5y ago