Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube is soon coming up with YouTube TV. This live TV service is to attract young fans of online videos towards a television pay package. Millennials love great TV content, but what YouTube has seen is they don’t want to watch it in the traditional setting. In addition, it will launch primarily in select US markets.
YouTube TV will be available over the internet and debut in the coming months at a cost of $35 a month for six accounts. It will compete with other services to attract mobile-loving younger audiences who dropped high-priced, old cable and satellite packages or never signed up. Further, the subscribers will be able to watch original programming that appears on YouTube Red. It is a subscription service that includes movies and shows featuring popular YouTube video creators.
This attempt by YouTube is just to sell their new service to the viewers who are addicted to free videos. The live TV will feature Walt Disney Co’s ABC, CBS Corp’s CBS, 21st Century Fox’s and Comcast Corp’s NBC plus cable channels including ESPN, USA and FX. It will compete with services such as Dish Network Corp’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Sony Corp’s PlayStation Vue. These packages sell around $20 to $65 a month. Also, Hulu is developing a live TV service.
Channel owners say they earn more for each subscriber on a live digital service than through cable or satellite packages.
YouTube aims to make the YouTube TV app easy to use across mobile devices, desktop computers or an Internet-connected televisions. In addition, users will be able to record programming on a cloud DVR and watch it for up to nine months. Engineers also are incorporating technology from Google. This would be like the ability to voice search TV shows through a Google Home device.
