Beyond cat videos: YouTube will offer pay-TV
new york — Fed up with paying for cable the traditional way? You may soon be able to subscribe to it over the Internet with ... YouTube.
The Google-owned site, known for cat videos and do-ityourself make-up tutorials, is the latest company to offer a version of cable that looks and feels more like Netflix. Dish, Sony and AT&T already have Internet cable alternatives, and Hulu has one coming soon.
None of these have yet been huge hits. YouTube is hoping its expertise in recommendations and search makes it stand out.
Dubbed YouTube TV, the new service will cost $35 a month for access to about 40 channels when it launches in the next few months. But it will be initially limited to a few cities where it has deals with broadcasters. And so far, Google doesn’t appear to have deals for popular channels such as HBO, AMC and TBS.
There are roughly three million fewer traditional TV households in the US then there were four years ago, a decline of about three per cent. Online alternatives such as Dish’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Sony’s PlayStation Vue had about 1.5 million customers combined in 2016.
But companies like YouTube believe a substantial number of people could be persuaded to pay for TV online. Many of these potential customers are younger people who have never had cable and watch shows and movies primarily through online services such as Netflix.
But these online cable alternatives have drawbacks of their own. They may not offer substantial savings compared with cable, and offer incomplete channel line-ups and inconsistent video quality.
YouTube’s offering
YouTube’s service will cost $35 a month, similar to the cheapest deals from AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Sony’s PlayStation Vue, but more expensive than Dish’s Sling TV. It comes with unlimited storage in a cloud DVR; only Vue also offers a DVR to all customers. It will allow three people to watch on different devices at the same time.
But YouTube still faces challenges making this work. In addition to the no-shows in its channel line-up, it will launch only in cities where it can offer live feeds of the major broadcasters, which tend to be larger metropolitan areas. (YouTube says it will work on expanding to other markets, although that will require cutting deals with the owners of network affiliate stations in those cities.) It will work on a TV only via Google’s Chromecast streaming gadget.
What’s the problem?
In general, Internet TV services are an incomplete substitute for cable.
Many popular programmes aren’t available because digital rights are a hodgepodge. You can’t watch most NFL games on phones using these services — Verizon has those exclusive rights. DirecTV Now and Sling don’t carry CBS, and live feeds for ABC, CBS and NBC are available only in some big cities, as most network stations are owned by third parties.
Although many cable subscribers say they don’t need packages of 500 channels, they don’t agree on which channels they actually want. — AP