YouTube TV price increase to $64.99
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/30/21308449/youtube-tv-price-increase-64-99-viacom-hbo-new-channels
YouTube TV has announced a new price of $64.99 per month due to a new licensing agreement with CBS and they are adding a few new channels making it the most expensive alternative to cable in the marketplace.
Why is it when these cable alternatives announce price increases they give hardly any advance notice? I'm considering Philo @ $20/month (no sports though). For Michigan games not on local TV I may just go to a friend's house or catch the YouTube replay.
Anyone else want off the cable subscription hamster wheel?
I've been a reasonably happy YouTubeTV customer for a couple years. I wasn't thrilled when the price went to $49.99/mo, but sucked it up. I'll probably cancel this time around. Sure, I can probably find another $180 a year in the budget but I'm pretty sure I can do better things with that money than giving it to fucking Google.
Lived without cable for years, will do it again no problem. Would be nice if I could get the networks, though, no antenna brings them in around here.
I have an entirely different take. I have no problem paying a whole year's worth of cable TV to have all the CFB games this year that I want to watch.
I can get all the Michigan games at my home with no lines and replays plus every other CFB game I care to watch this year? No brainier. I know guys who'd spend 500 or so easily on golf clubs or.
I'll never notice that money gone but missing the games, no way the they are just way too important to me. I wait all year for CFB, can't imagine not enjoying all of it. I'd actually spend 5x more if I had to but don't tell them that.
I always cancel my membership from April to September anyway, I am a bit to picky about picture quality to rely on pirate streams so I will probably suck it up and renew if football starts up. Either that or add a comcast package to my internet
It will be a no win situation. Soon all the cut the cable people will be paying the same price as cable. I've had Hulu for 7 years and have seen 6 price increases. Hell, I might go back to cable, though the sports package on my cable is still more expensive if I want the B1G netork.
I'm another Vue widower who moved on to YoutubeTV! I'm pissed. What a fucking joke. If I wanted a bloated cable-style service, I would've stayed with cable!
I guess I'll have to look around for cheaper, slimmer alternatives that carry sports channels.
Anyone know about these guys?
Missing a few channels I really like, but their sports lineup is good. Starts at $30.
Hello, where has this service been all my life?
If it actually streams well and works....., not to mention, with their Social Tv aspect you can stream three devices/houses at once, so even at $40/mo. you could share it with two other households.
This goes in the check it out category if college football turns out to happen this fall.
I miss when youtube wasn't owned by google
And pretty soon you will be paying the same thing you were before
I pay for Hulu+ for $55, Disney+ for $7, and Prime Instant Video is free with a prime membership. Netflix and HBO Max are shared through family. I have access to all of this for less than the price of YouTubeTV...
This almost has to be a way for them to exit this market. They are getting killed with cancellations. This was a power move by Viacom in that they basically said add these shitty channels to the basic tier or lose CBS and you will lose even more subs. This was inevitable with all of the media mergers. It’s bullshit and a perfect example of what happens when these big companies are allowed to merge with each other. The consumer gets screwed. I watch about 2 channels so I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Thinking about rotating sling and yttv depending on the season. My issue with that is sling doesn’t have local and I don’t want to mess with an antenna. This sucks.
We're about to find out because I'm out until sports are back in full force!
You guys are splitting YouTube TV with two other people, right?
YouTube TV allows three simultaneous streams. So what do you do? You create three burner Gmail addresses. The primary burner Gmail address is the billing info that you manage. The other two burner Gmail addresses you give to your friends/family. You all know the logins/passwords, because if one of these people lives outside the metro area billing zip code for the account, they need to login every 90 days. Because it's a burner account, the primary person can login to the account (because they know the login/password) and the other person won't feel weird because they won't have to hand over their personal Gmail login/password because they're using a burner Gmail.
Let me know if you have any additional questions.
Ya it's vital...we have some friends that pay for Netflix, some Hulu, some HBO, we split YTV, and I add in my Plex server as a bonus. We all pay <$50/month for everything.
Its almost like bundling is the most effective model of tv distribution
I finally cut the cord last month, and went with YouTube TV based on recommendations here and elsewhere. Not thrilled about this increase, but it still saves me $100/month from Comcast, which I was desperate to drop. Unfortunately, I still have Comcast internet, but at least converted to my own home network (ironically, Google Home) to improve signal and avoid leasing their equipment.
Rona has completely unchained me from sports, and it's not horrible; not sure how engaged I'll be when they come back.
Unfortunately, this is how capitalism works. It was inevitable that streaming services would seek to close the profit gap with Comcast, once the migration really started. It's the same with auto insurance. Not sure why I need to switch insurance every 5 years, but they clearly know they can keep increasing the price until I call Progressive and find out I can save $100/month.
Although YTV has the best interface and DVR out of all of them, this price increase is the end for me. We only ever use it for sports anyhow, so no need right now...and if they come back, we usually just split the cost between a few friends (you can have up to 6 people on an account).
Outside of sports, it's a good VPN, a 6TB hard drive, my Plex server, and torrenting all the way.
Lenovo TS440 8x4TB (RAID1, 14TB usable) ZFS on Linux (Ubuntu 18.04) SMB3 share to Windows Desktop reporting for duty.
what vpn do you rec?
I paused my YouTube TV account, without sports or "Better Call Saul" there is literally nothing I watch live (ok, so I recorded/watched the Ken burns doc on Country Music, fabulous, but an exception and I'm done with it), so until such time as Michigan sports comes back, it is just going to sit. At that point I'll subscribe during the sports seasons and pause inbetween.
Bottom line, they need to figure out a way to break the channels into affinity-based packages where I'm only paying for the channels I want. Honestly, if you gave me the major networks, local channels and a sports package that includes B10 Network so I can catch M games and PBS, that's all I want. I'm not adding $15-$20 per month for additional channels I'll never watch. Give me a $30-$40/month subscription for 20 channels of my choice and leave it at that. They would make higher profits off that package and I would be happier. I seriously have no idea why this is so hard to pull off.
I didn't quit Comcast just to end up paying Google/YouTube, Disney, Netflix, Hulu, Prime, NBC, AMC, etc. more $.
I'm settled out to Netflix, Prime and on/off with Hulu. YouTube TV will get turned on for M football season and basketball and then paused. I paid for year of CuriosityStream and that is pretty cool so far, not sure if I'll hit the end of the road there or not by year end. I could see subscribing to PBS at some point.
I will never go back to watching any TV that has advertising....ever. I have spent the last 1.5-2 years watching without it. I only watch M sports and my friends and I just record it, schedule to watch it 1.5 hours later and FF through the ads. The few times we have watched live the ad breaks
Yes, I know...get off my lawn!
I used to work for The Weather Channel. The reason they don't allow for a la carte programming is that most of the content providers are owned by conglomerates. Because they own multiple channels, it would end up killing off the less watched channels, which is why they bundle all of them together in a per subscriber rate per bundle to the YTTV's of the world. You get rid of one, you get rid of all.
I did talk to the person who runs Hulu's deals with the content providers. They're hemorrhaging money but because of their ownership structure they can continue. Don't be surprised if all of the services raise their rates soon after the signal from YTTV.
BTW, no one here has mentioned the elephant in the room. Viacom owns Pluto TV, their free AVOD streaming service. Raising the rates to YTTV for their channels both increases churn (dropping of subscribers) to YTTV and pushes more people to Pluto, which means more ad revenue. Genius.
I'm as pissed as everyone here. "I'll take 8 channels I haven't watched since 1988, for another $15 a month, Bob."
I’ve LOVED YouTube TV...but that’s a huge jump all at once. When I started, it was only $39/month.
My wife needs local 4...WDIV. Anyone ever try Fubo?
People love to bash the supposedly greedy cable companies and now say that their competition is greedy too. That's hilarious. Did it ever occur to anyone that the content programmers are the ones that are greedily increasing costs? That's the common denominator, here, folks. Content is king.
Trust me, I'm a cable doctor.
Try going outside
$65 a month?? Why the hell would I bother with that when at this point a cable tv bundle is probably the same price if not cheaper...these "cable alternatives" are completely ruining the entire point of cutting the cord.
Thinking back to my very first day of DirectvNow with the Go Big 100+ channels package for $35 a month seems like a pipe dream now. Looks like I'll be sticking with Philo TV and using a digital antenna + parent's cable subscription for the games this fall....
Edit: Quote from the following article (Link)
"YouTube TV has announced that it’ll be raising its monthly price from $50 per month to $64.99 as the company starts to offer eight of ViacomCBS’s channels, which are available today: BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land, and VH1."
Who the hell wants any of these channels? This really should have been an optional add-on. Don't want it? Don't add it and your monthly bill doesn't increase. Why do they have to lump everything together? It's just as bad as the cable companies.
Just wait until ISPs start charging YouTube to not throttle their traffic. With net neutrality being gone, it’s only a matter of time. The cost will just be passed to the consumer. It’s going to be a shit show for sure. ISPs already did this to Netflix a few years back.
I fully expect ISPs like Comcast to offer packages like they’ve handled cable: “oh if you need Facebook and YouTube, you’ll need our Family Extension Pack - so that’s 6.99/mo extra” type crap.
Very little mention of Hulu live. Pretty much the same as yttv and only $55/mo. All the networks, ESPN, btn etc...
Can someone who has comcast xfinity break down their bill? I'm re-interested now in a internet/tv package and want to access it via their xfinity app on ROKU / Android boxes. But I read something they may charge per access point like $5 on top of everything else? Also worried about getting fee'd to death...
$89 per month
+ fees 1 2 3 4 & 5 now we're at $100+ a month that is my fear