YouTube, the world’s biggest video streaming service, now wants to sell you TV for $35 a month. This makes them the newest competitor in a growing number of services that are offering Internet TV.
This new service, which is set to go live in the next few months, will be a standalone app where subscribers can watch shows from a number of broadcast channels and cable networks. This app differs from YouTube Red, an ad-free subscription service that was launched last year but hasn’t had a lot of success thus far. The company have also claimed that this will be a “mobile first”, expecting most of the subscribers to watch TV directly from their phones although there will be the possibility to stream from other devices.
YouTube have dubbed this the “skinny” TV bundle as it won’t offer as many channels as other services but instead be compiled of four broadcast networks – Fox, ABC, NBS and NBC – alongside some cable networks, too. An Exec said that there will be three dozen channels available but the price still stands at a lot less than what other cable networks tend to charge.
There has been a huge demand for TV content on YouTube, with CEO Susan Wojcicki stating that “millennials want TV content, but they do not want to wait for it in the living room” during a launch event at the company’s headquarters in L.A. To date, Wojcicki said there have been three major turning points for TV delivery: cable in the 1980s, online video and mobile video.
Some may criticize YouTube TV for its failure to include major networks such as CNN, Comedy Central and AMT but the company have stated that it’s low price will be the main reason that subscriptions will soar and that the new service will hopefully become as successful as Amazon has been. What it may seem to lack in terms of choice, it makes up for in functionality. The service comes with cloud-based DVR with an unlimited capacity and within the monthly fee you can add up to six accounts.
You can read more about the battle between Internet and Linear TV in this week’s issue of Apple Magazine, available to download on the App store.
