According to Buzzfeed, tomorrow YouTube TV will expand it’s over-the-top television service to include Turner channels — and, beyond the requisite CNN, basketball fans can now call YouTube TV home with the addition of TBS and TNT. But, wait, there’s more — NBA League Pass will be available as an add-on. Less interesting, to me anyway, is the inclusion of original YouTube Red content. I get YouTube needs to pump their own stuff, but hopefully they’re continuing to work top-shelf programming deals and will be able to soon offer Scripps channels of HGTV, Food, and Travel. Given the incoming $5 price hike from $35 to $40, let’s hope so. In any event, YouTube TV remains one of the more interesting and compelling OTT aggregators given a generous 6 accounts and unlimited DVR capacity.
Some details still unclear as Buzzfeed pulled their post and I’m going off memory of a post skimmed on my phone from a parking lot. Guess they broke the embargo. Wondering if the price increase is for new customers or across the board.
I generally like YouTube TV, but it has one major problem that make it unusable for me– it forcibly converts DVR content to On Demand, and it doesn’t let you skip commercials in On Demand. That is completely unacceptable.
Reports are this was forced by content owners as a license condition, and they’re trying to do the same with other services too. I don’t care who’s at fault. I will not pay to watch commercials under any circumstances.
@Paul…that has always been my worry with the OTT services. The “DVR”s could easily end up all being just like that. A new way to force commercials. Hopefully most of the services will eventually all offer a buy-up option for commercial free content, like Hulu does.
Frankly all of these OTT options and boxes are going backwards in terms of usability.
Really wish TIVO offer some sort of cable streaming option that would integrate with its native UI and DVR. Would beat the hell out of all this nonsense.
Yes, they need to offer an experience comparable to TiVo to be worth considering. If they try to force commercials on me, I pass by without a second glance.
It’s fine to charge _more_ for a completely commercial-free experience. Offer that choice and let the market decide.
I assume all cloud DVR services will eventually incorporate non-skippable and updating commercial breaks… Who knows if I’m right or when it may happen, but that’s the future I envision.
I think you’re probably right, and that will offer a substantial advantage to traditional cable TV/DVRs/TiVo.
It will also, of course, promote piracy.
That is why I still have my Tivos. I have control the whether I watch the ads.
Just cable by a different name. Would love to put together my lineup for $25. That would be innovation.
I hope they will offer different packages.I could deal without all of the news and sports channels.
I imagine we’ll see a two-tier cloud DVR system become common: the base version (automatically included with service) won’t allow FFing through ads. The upgrade version, which costs extra, will. This is what Hulu does with their cloud DVR. Seems fair.
@Wayne: If sports and news aren’t your thing, look somewhere else besides YouTube TV. They smartly targeted the two types of content that are the biggest reasons why people still subscribe to linear pay TV (i.e. “cable”). Sports and news, plus locals, are the reasons to get YouTube TV. Particularly among the younger demo that Google is targeting, if one isn’t interesting in those things, then you can get all the other kind of content you want (scripted series, docs and reality, movies, music, short clips) from non-linear sources like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, iTunes, Vudu, etc.
Brian, that’s why I didn’t call it a service for cord cutters – since subscribers are essentially replacing one cord with another.
Besides the On Demand issue, the other stopper for me is no live PBS.