YouTube TV is available right now. So what is it? How does it work? We’ ve got the answers.
YouTube TV has finally arrived – though, it looks like it’s only in five cities for the time-being. The lucky cities to get YouTube’s new live TV streaming service include New York, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Chicago and Philadelphia, but more US cities are supposedly coming soon.
YouTube TV is joining the ‘established players’ in the cord-cutting world that include Sling TV and PlayStation Vue and relative newcomer, DirecTV Now.
But, out of the group, YouTube TV has the most potential.
Why is YouTube TV going to be big? Well, while PlayStation Vue and Sling TV had to carve out a new audience for their products, YouTube TV already has one – one billion users that live in 88 countries and speak 76 different languages.
OK, so YouTube TV is going to be big, you get that. But what exactly is YouTube TV and why should you care? Let’s talk about it.
YouTube TV is a US-exclusive live TV streaming service – think Netflix but instead of on-demand TV shows and movies you’ ll see cable channels like ABC, NBC, FOX, ESPN and Disney among many, many more. It’s like cable in the sense that everything is divided by channel and, yes, you’ ll have to pay a monthly fee for it, but the difference here is that you’ ll be able to take shows whenever and wherever you go.
Well, sort of. Because YouTube TV has all the local stations, it will initially launch in a few cities and then expand out into other regions – similar to how PlayStation Vue started. YouTube hasn’ t given us the exact number of channels on the service but it looks like a lot our favorites are here.
Loading up the service for the first time, we were recommended shows like Archer, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons and many more. We easily found enough content to keep us entertained for the time-being, plus will have plenty to watch next time we log-on thanks to YouTube TV’s stellar Cloud DVR.
Cloud DVR, if you’ve never heard that term before, allows you to record your favorite shows as they air and save them, well, to the cloud so that you can watch them later. It’s TiVo, but everything’s online. YouTube TV promises unlimited storage for shows for up to nine months – a serious advantage over the competition which usually only offer 28 days of storage.
Also, unlike Sling TV which wants you to buy a more expensive package to allow more than one user to watch TV at a time, YouTube says that its service will allow up to six people in the family to access the service and will allow up to three of them tune into the service simultaneously on the same account – a big advantage when you’ re looking to replace cable and you have a big family.
The other thing we know about YouTube TV is its price: $35 a month. For comparison, that’s slightly more expensive than Sling TV’s basic $20-per-month package and a few dollars less than PlayStation Vue’s basic $39 package that includes local stations like CBS, NBC, etc…
But, to sweeten the deal, pay for your first month of service and you’ll get a brand-new Chromecast for free.
Again, we don’ t have a complete picture of who exactly YouTube roped into the deal, but we do know a few of the big players. First off, all the local channels are on-board: NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX. That means every NFL game up to and including the Super Bowl, are yours to watch every Sunday.
Now that YouTube TV has arrived, we also know that AMC has signed on, which means you’ll still be able to get your Walking Dead fix on Sundays.
Beyond the local stuff, you’ ve got all the channels that fall under the umbrella of those companies – i.e. ESPN, CSN, FOX Sports, USA, FX, Disney, E!, Bravo, SyFy, FXX, National Geographic, MSNBC, FOX News, CNBC and more.
On top of all those channels we’ ve already mentioned, you’ ll also get access to YouTube’s own network of shows, YouTube Red Originals. Shows on this ‘network’ (a term we use very lightly here) include Scare PewDiePie and exclusive films that you’ ve probably never heard of. This really isn’ t a huge draw for most people, but hey, maybe the money that comes in from YouTube TV can be used to crank up the quality of this content to near-Netflix levels.
Now, like Amazon Video, you can actually tack on additional premium stations for an extra fee. Right now the list of premium offerings include FOX Soccer Plus and Showtime, which will likely cost around $10 extra per month.
OK, so who’s missing so far? Well, AMC, CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery, Food Network, MTV and TNT aren’ t there, which is a bit of a bummer, and there aren’ t as many channels for kids on YouTube TV as there are on Sling TV – a potential problem for parents.
HBO hasn’ t signed up for the service yet either, which is strange considering that it peddles its wares on Amazon Video, but then again you can always subscribe to HBO Now if you really need your Game of Thrones on the go.
This can be sort of confusing, so listen up. YouTube Red is an ad-free version of YouTube that has a few fun features like allowing you to keep a video playing even when your phone is turned off. A subscription to YouTube Red also gives you access to the YouTube Red Originals channel that we talked about earlier.
What YouTube Red won’t allow you to do is watch live TV or cable TV content. For that you’ll need YouTube TV.
YouTube TV, like YouTube Red, will start as a US-only service and then might possibly expand out into other territories. YouTube wants to roll its Red service out to the UK sometime in 2017, but it’s facing problems doing so. It’s more than likely YouTube TV would follow in that path, unfortunately.
Is there some crossover potential here between these two services? Absolutely. Maybe a subscription to YouTube TV also nets you a free subscription to Red. But we’ll just have to wait to find out more from YouTube if that’s the case.
That’s a good question and a very pertinent one. The answer here is ‘maybe’ . Depending on how many channels YouTube TV ends up with and how easy it is to stream (hopefully YouTube won’ t have the same performance issues Sling TV and Vue have) , then yes, it has the potential to be a much better deal than cable.
Look at it this way: if you’ re already paying for internet service, you can tack on an extra $30 for YouTube TV and maybe a $10-per-month subscription to Netflix and have just as much content as you’ d have from a cable TV service that usually run $60-70 per month.
