YouTube TV will cost a lot more per month in April

AppleInsider

Google is hiking the price of cord-cutting option YouTube TV, and is blaming it on the rising price of content.

In an email sent to subscribers, Google announced that it will hike YouTube TV prices, up from $64.99 per month to $72.99 per month. The price hike is set to take place when customers are billed in April.

YouTube TV last underwent a price hike in mid-2020, when subscribers saw a 30% increase as the price climbed from $49.99 to $64.99.

YouTube TV is a cable replacement service that gives subscribers access to live and on-demand content. It features content from over a hundred channels, including major networks like CBS, FOX, and NBC.

Seperately, I=un October,the company did the same thing with the YouTube Premium Family Plan. That service saw a price hike from $17.99 to $22.99 -- and anyone who subscribed from the App Store saw their subscription increase to $29.99 a month.

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baka-dubbs

I have been a subscriber since Youtube TV started at $35 and it was an amazing value proposition, with my use case being for live sports.  As they continue to add more channels I don't care about and increase prices, I am looking seriously at alternatives.  Its getting to the point that compared to a cable bundle its no longer saving me money, it actually costs more than traditional cable tv/internet.  They seriously need to bring different service tiers as its no longer worth the price they are charging.

22july2013

I presume Youtube TV is like Paramount+ TV, whereby about 50% of their programming is cut off here at the Canadian border, due to international distribution rules, and yet we Canadians are expected to pay full price for it. (And Paramount+ doesn't even have a web page telling us what's missing; we all have to figure it out for ourselves.)

lkrupp

I think I was one of those who suspected that cord cutting would wind up biting the consumer in the ass someday as the costs of individual streaming services would soon catch up with basic cable bundles.

edited March 2023

appleish

Pass. We cut the cord for a reason. Let me pay for streaming channels à la carte, and we'll talk.

hmurchison

I turn the bigger services off after football season anyways.  Folks like me "fairweather viewers" are probably an underlaying cause of price hikes.   I've got an itchy cancel finger 

daalseth

hmurchison said:

I turn the bigger services off after football season anyways.  Folks like me "fairweather viewers" are probably an underlaying cause of price hikes.   I've got an itchy cancel finger 

Me too. I subscribe to one channel or another as needed. AppleTV was last June, only. Paramount got cut a couple years ago and I haven’t seen any reason to go back, and don’t get me started on Netflix, it would be a joke at half the price. 

Right now we’ve been using Pluto. No monthly fees. Sure there are commercials, but I grew up with commercials, they don’t bother me. That’ll last until they do something dumb and we cut them off. 

lkrupp said:

I think I was one of those who suspected that cord cutting would wind up biting the consumer in the ass someday as the costs of individual streaming services would soon catch up with basic cable bundles.

I suspected the same and it’s come to pass. Fortunately we have some self discipline and every time we talk about trying some service the next question is “so what do we cut then.” 

slow n easy

lkrupp said:

I think I was one of those who suspected that cord cutting would wind up biting the consumer in the ass someday as the costs of individual streaming services would soon catch up with basic cable bundles.

I only pay about $17.00/month and there is way too much content for me to watch as it is. I’m perfectly happy with my 2 streaming services and OTA with TiVo. YouTube TV isn’t really a stand alone streaming service. It has most of, if not all of, the channels that you would get on cable. Hulu does something similar, and there is no way I would ever even try it.

chadbag

Read a book.  Watch a DVD/Blueray.  Start or continue with a hobby.  Take a walk.  Go play sports.  Practice a musical instrument.   

A million and one other things that are more worthwhile to me than watching stupid crap on a screen.  

We have Netflix through T-mobile, that the daughter watches some anime on, and Prime video, whether I want it or not, since I want my crap delivered fast.

I’ve rented on iTunes once it twice when we had a family activity to watch a movie that we didn’t have a DVD for or wasn’t free on Netflix or prime at the moment.  Heck of a lot cheaper than a subscription that will tempt me to waste time. 

YMMV but I would suggest trying to ween yourself off heavy media consumption.   You’d be amazed at all the stuff you can get done.  

rob53

I watched a video that said Fox News is one of the highest costing channels no matter where it's viewed. I believe they said HBO was the highest. They're talking about something around $4/viewer so when you start adding up all the channels it gets expensive. I also read people are demanding some of the higher costing "free" channels be removed from the base charge.

meljenzo

YouTube TV cuts channels and increases their prices! No good, YouTube. A few weeks back, they cut MLB Network (which we used to watch all the time) from the channel list. Now in April, they increase the price?! What a joke! I have been with YouTube TV when it was $35/month. I liked it for the simple channel line-up and didn't have all the fat that the traditional cable and satellite providers have. Now, YouTube is basically just another cable provider. Why not provide different channel tiers!? I'd like to keep my bills low! I'll be switching to another provider!

radarthekat

lkrupp said:

I think I was one of those who suspected that cord cutting would wind up biting the consumer in the ass someday as the costs of individual streaming services would soon catch up with basic cable bundles.

I cut the cable back in 2016 when I moved from Florida to The Philippines.  I could get the vast majority of content here through cable-equivalent services if I wanted to; 300 channels including most American channels for some monthly price so it’s not that I couldn’t continue.  But there’s life out here in a different culture with places to explore and friendly people to interact with.  I don’t even bother to follow American sports teams.  As a former New Englander I followed Brady and the Pats when I lived in Massachusetts (most of my life) and then in Florida (from 2009 - 2016) but even that interest quickly faded when I exited the environment of American sports bars and constant debate about which team or player is best.  It was incredibly freeing to step outside of western culture to see that there’s life to live beyond the glow of a television screen.  But it does rain here, sometimes torrential, so I do have a Netflix subscription, and Apple TV+ for those occasions.  Total cost is about $15/month.  

edited March 2023

rezwits

The problem is, SOOOOO many people would lose jobs and soooooo many "channels" would DIE, without their "25¢ per/mo (or 5¢, 10¢, or even a 1¢)" from a $75-ish per/mo bill, where ESPN gets $15 or whatever, i.e. sports and very very popular shows keep all the 500+ channels alive.  Streaming has already killed quite a few jobs.

People would really really only get the supreme à la carte channels/movies/shows and the others would fade away as soon as the last cable or dish subscription was cancelled.  IT SUCKS to have to throw our money away at the 80% of channels/shows that nobody really wants to watch anyway.

I HATE THIS... let these people lose there jobs and face reality... but no they milk the working people so they can continue to be in the entertainment industry!!

foregoneconclusion

designr said: Studios want to own distribution. They always have wanted to. Now they have a chance.

It's actually a back-to-the-future kind of scenario. In the early days of cinema, studios owned the theaters that their movies were shown in. If you wanted to see a movie made by Paramount you had to go to a Paramount theater etc.

pairof9

We just switched to YouTube TV last month due to Sling's recent price increase and their asinine policy of 1 Blue stream even in the combo bundle. Low and behold, YouTube TV now says I'll pay more than Sling. Guess I'll go back to Sling...or Fubo...or Hulu...or...

I'm sure glad they're not complete idiots like the cable companies that charge you to start and quit the service in addition to requiring a contract. 

bluelightning

I've never had cable tv.  Mostly watch over the air, and series that are no additional charge with Amazon Prime.  
Looks like I save the equivalent of three 14" MacBook Pros every 10 years.  

edited March 2023

andrewhahalee

In my country watching TV is free since 1900s. YouTube living in 1800s.

sdw2001

I’ve had YouTube TV for a couple of years.  I saw this price increase come up yesterday, and I have to say it’s going to cause me to seriously reconsider my subscription.  I don’t think I’m alone and I think Google is probably going to regret going this far. They should have raised it to 68.99.  The tax brings it to that price anyway and perhaps their customers may not have noticed. I think they’re going to actually lose subscribers over this.  

tenthousandthings

YouTube TV bought the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. They outbid Apple and others. They’re going to get an influx of new subscribers with that (even though it is an add-on), so this price hike is likely part of that calculus.

I don’t know what happened with MLB Network and the MLB.TV add-on. I’ll guess that will be resolved, but maybe not. I’ll also guess YouTube TV wants a special deal/rate with MLB because they’re going to have all the NFL fans, so they expect to have a higher percentage of sports viewers than other live television streaming providers. 

rockaw

baka-dubbs said:

I have been a subscriber since Youtube TV started at $35 and it was an amazing value proposition, with my use case being for live sports.  As they continue to add more channels I don't care about and increase prices, I am looking seriously at alternatives.  It's getting to the point that compared to a cable bundle it's no longer saving me money, it actually costs more than traditional cable tv/internet.  They seriously need to bring different service tiers as it's no longer worth the price they are charging.

Same for us. I really like YouTubeTV, but we really only want about five channels. I'm willing to pay for them. I don't care that ESPN represents $30 of the total -- I could not care less about 99% of ESPN programming. They need to come up with an a la carte package or they'll find half their subscriber base scrambling for a different solution.

strangedays

lkrupp said:

I think I was one of those who suspected that cord cutting would wind up biting the consumer in the ass someday as the costs of individual streaming services would soon catch up with basic cable bundles.

Then you’d still be wrong. If your intent is to reproduce your cable bundle with individual services, well, yeah. But if you came to the conclusion that most of your bundle is crap you don’t care about, and you’d rather pay for the small bits you do, then you’d have been saving money for two decades now. I either buy seasons of shows on iTunes, or subscribe to limited streams depending on the content/season. In no way am I dropping as much as your cable bill. 

edited March 2023