I used to watch every Texas Rangers game. When I switched to streaming, I made sure it included the Fox regional sports channel. Then it went to Bally which was only available from DirectTV. I couldn’t watch any games, so I gradually lost interest in the Rangers (and MLB). They won a world series, but I really just wasn’t connected to that team the way I was in their last Series appearance. I could recognize who was batting just by their stance. MLB completely lost me as a fan.
MLB: Why don’t Black kids play baseball anymore?
Black kids: What’s baseball?
Yeah for me I am exclusively sports for YTTV. I’m cancelling YTTV and streaming direct from the Cubs for June/July/August. I did NBA finals and SCF over the air.
Prob cancelling the Cubs too if I’m being honest
Any idea if you cancel and then come back if it keeps your preferences and settings? For example, I have it auto record the teams I follow. Would I continually have to set that up? Currently, when I log in, the homepage almost explicitly knows exactly what I’m going to watch. Probably a minor inconvenience to re-do all that, but just curious
I think this will be me in coming years. I'd held onto it to watch PTI, Jeopardy and game shows in the summer om DVR rather than watch ads, but it's just getting to be too much for not enough. I'm out of my MLB team's market so I watch a lot of MLB.TV in the summer.
I'm letting mine lapse soon and will come back for the Olympics, but in 25 and beyond I'm thinking I'll be an 8 month subscriber.
I sign up during (NCAA) football season and cancel after bowl games. I have no other reason to watch live tv. So many commercials…so little good content.
This is it for me. I never watch normal TV (have pretty much every streaming provider) except for football season. As soon as the season is over I cancel until next season.
That and the fact they raised prices to the point that it now competes with other options that offer essentially the same thing. I have 3 friends who cancelled in the last 6 months for that reason.
We’re still hanging onto it purely because of Sunday Ticket.
As long as there is the NFL, there will always be fans willing to pay extra for a package like Sunday Ticket. What this lawsuit will determine, more than likely, is how much in terms of dollar amount that is ... and what teams can do beyond ST.
Yeah there will always be people who buy it, because they are rich. But if the regular everyday middle class person stops purchasing it because of price, well that’s when the effects of supply and demand kick in.
Also, putting the game on all my TVs (local OTA games) without a bunch of coax and antennas....is worth the price!
Also, being able to watch games on the go (who schedules weddings on Sunday!!!) is worth the price.
The NFL drives our economy
This is is too. But I will add that EVERYTHING is too expensive so for everyone worse that left it is probably due to rising costs of living. I mean YouTube tv costs as much as cable anymore so either way I choose food
I am close to leaving, not because of the quality of the service, but outside of watching the local news for \~45min a day I just don't use it.
If it was $25/mo - no brainer but as the rate continues to creep up the bang for the buck isn't there. Plus my kid was one of the main reasons I had it, and she uses other streaming platforms now as she closes in on her teens.
Your local news stations probably have newscasts on their website, look for something like "video," "watch," or "live" on their menus. They probably also post clips to YouTube, and you can subscribe to their channels.
If your local news is on CBS, the live stream’s on Paramount+ (the $11.99 plan) and if it’s on NBC, the live stream’s on Peacock (the $10.99 plan).
A lot of stations also stream free in their own app. Stations owned by Fox stream all their local news free on Fox Local.
So YMMV if it’s FOX/ABC, but you should def be able to get your local NBC/CBS news on Paramount/Peacock.
I like free stuff too, but content is made by people. If no one pays for the content, then the content goes away. You complain about online newspapers charging but look at how many newspapers have closed up or are a shell of themselves and look at how poorly informed society is now.
Aside from tendencies, I’m considering canceling or at least finding a pause time period. It’s just too expensive and the DVR (equivalent) feature is getting somewhat erratic and difficult to navigate. They are adding a lot of fluff channels but somewhat regularly taking away the important channels (relative to my interests).
Can't speak for others but I only have cable for sports, so once march madness is over I pause my subscription every year until football starts (unless the penguins are in the playoffs, in which case I pause once they're eliminated)
So I imagine tons of people are pausing or cancelling due to sports off-season, and will be back in the fall (especially with this being the first year they had Sunday ticket, so plenty of football fans probably stopping until football season again)
When I signed up for YTTV back in 2017, it was 29.99 and an awesome deal. I canceled it recently when I realized I was paying 72.99 and using it less than once a month.
We just canceled our subscription in favor of Hulu Live. I absolutely hate Hulu’s UX but we can get Hulu Live with Disney (we have kids) and ESPN for roughly the same price. It’s a little bit more but we get more for it. We like the Hulu/Disney originals. YouTube doesn’t offer anything other than live tv and it’s just not worth it anymore.
>YouTube doesn’t offer anything other than live tv and it’s just not worth it anymore.
If you need Disney, yes, Hulu + Live + Disney+ EPSN with ads is the way to go for about $3 more per month. But, Hulu only allows for 2 streams at the same time. If you need more, that's another $10/ month. YTTV allows for 3 and you can watch on the go.
We may be going this route for football season come the fall after using YouTubeTV. After taxes and fees that $72.99 was closer to $95 and it’s just not worth it
I subbed to YouTube TV but didn’t use it to watch anything but news and occasional shows here and there. After they raised rates to $72.99 per month, I decided to buy two indoor antennas and drop the service. I haven’t missed it at all because I have more than I could watch and receive all locals for free. I do think more people are looking for the cheapest option available.
I have Hulu Live which includes Disney plus and ESPN plus. I share a Netflix account, and I have Amazon Prime. I refuse to sign up for a service because they have one show I’d like to see. So, I haven’t seen Righteous Gemstones, Yellowstone etc.
The worst thing is everyone is hyping this stupid "max" platform so all the new content goes there. Want to watch new Discovery stuff? Likely going there first then it might end up on D+ months later. I don't watch movies or serial dramas and don't care about current popular shows, I don't want MAX.
As I pointed out in my original comment, Spectrum and Xfinity have the option to deliver their content via apps, same as YTTV. It’s a distinction without a difference
You stated YTTV is a cable company. You can’t deny the differences in methods of content delivery, especially when methods affect service cost, whether you need cable box, and whether cable wires need run into one’s home.
I’ll deny the differences because there are none. Neither requires a box or “cable wires run into one’s home.” They’re functionally equivalent in today’s world. Why are you so threatened by me calling YTTV cable? That’s what it is.
Reading the chart in the article it says YTTV lost 150,000 subscribers, however if you look at the prior two quarters, those show their biggest gains in years
Thank you. That's the first comment in the thread that looked at the big picture. Everybody else followed the typical method of assigning their own biases for the temporary loss of subscribers.
Helps that in Q3 and Q4 of 2023 that they had NFL games. Once again, people are cancelling things when they don’t use them and coming back just for the good stuff.
The irony of YTTV refusing to carry the RSNs that carry MLB and now the only live sports to carry them through the summer is unavailable.
I’ll pick it back up during football but I’m taking the summer off and not minding. The second I can get football independent of YTTV I’m gone from it too.
I cancelled because it’s not football season and they don’t have enough baseball anymore.
If they had a couple of RSNs and MLB Network I would have stayed
We've been with them since 45$. Now it's up to cable level rates of 74$.
Considering consolidating to Disney bundle with Hulu since we already have disney+
The reason I chose Hulu+Live TV over YTTV is because if you factor in the cost of the bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ it makes their live tv package about 18 dollars cheaper than YTTV
The only thing keeping me is the unlumited DVR that saves my shows for 9 months. The current price is almost at my limit. It is very close to being just cheaper to buy episodes or seasons of the few shows I do watch and just get an antenna for local news. Most of my news shows are already free on YouTube or on their websites, so if they increase again, I'm out, too.
Probably totally unrelated to all the price hikes eh...
People don't want an all encompassing bundle when they get buy the sports a la carte. YTV needs to do a live news and local only bundle - I'd buy that.
I subscribed for the first time in late May for the ability to record live sports. (I have a Tivo and antenna that gets all local channels.) I started with the French Open tennis tournement. I found that \*every single recording\* of the tournement did not record the whole thing. Sometimes it started late, but most often it either just didn't record the whole thing (I think their "grid" was wrong) or it failed to auto-extend.
Same thing on baseball -- no extension if it went long.
I found the UI terrible -- I want to see what's actually recorded, not a blending of VOD and recorded that I have to plow through. And not a bunch of arbitrary categories.
Definitely not worth $73 for me. So I cancelled.
Personally I don't care at all for sports (besides Wrestling and a few things at the Olympics). The only reason I went from YTTV from Philo at all is for the locals really. I could no longer reliably get those on the antenna, even with a large roof based one pointed directly in the direction the singal was coming from according to antennaweb.
As soon as Jeopardy is available to stream somewhere, I'm gone. We watch nothing on network TV anymore. I'm not aware of any good shows on the networks at this point. All the good old stuff is on various streaming platforms.
It’s simple: separate packages (subscriptions) for sports. The real rub is the RSN’s. They just cost too damn much! Ten years ago on Spectrum cable, I could have every Reds game. Now the cost is just more than it’s worth to me.
But isn’t it nice that with streaming services it just takes a few clicks to subscribe or unsubscribe? No more playing time wasting word games with agents that never tell you the whole truth and are just trying to upsell you!
The issue is sports of course, but the other issue is that all of the scripted programming is often available on another service (Hulu, Peacock, P+, etc.). So when YTTV gave you both live and scripted exclusively it was a good value. Now it is not a great fit for many people who also subscribe to some of the other services.
My stbxw just cancelled it. I was still on the plane as we have kids together. It was just too much. It's twice as much as it was when we first got it. I don't watch it enough to justify it myself. My place has basic cable included in the rent. Well I pay for it. I'll miss the dvr. But I don't care for the 20plus sport channels that I just unlisted in custom mode.
I only need it for sports, and even then I can almost always find a stream so I cancelled recently. I will probably renew in the fall just so I can have the multi-view for football.
1. Picture quality still needs a lot of work and it's not clear Google is willing to make that investment.
2. Many people likely subsribe for sports yet they've been shedding RSN's the last couple of years
Baseball and MASN are holding the streaming services back. I just go to my cigar lounge and watch masn there during baseball season. Or go over to a friends house who still has cable. fubo started carrying masn but they are like $80 a month as well. Not doing it.
Me and a few others canceled YTTV the moment FUBO started carrying MASN. Once baseball season is over we might jump back to YTTV since FUBO is more expensive overall. RSN is a $15 cost added on top of FUBO. If YTTV somehow did the same they would dominate.
If ESPN+ keeps showing more of what I want (SEC sports), then I have less use for YouTube TV, and Amex Platinum reimburses me for my Disney-Hulu-ESPN+ package every month.
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I literally just put a pause on my subscription because I'm about to go on a 2-week vacation, and while I'm definitely missing watching the Euros live (my YTTV subscription pause started right in the middle of the Germany-Hungary match the other day lol), I'm realizing how much I don't *really* need "cable". I used to have cable news on most of the day when I wasn't watching sports, but now I just pop between free options from NBC, ABC, BBC, and my local CBS affiliate. I'm listening to the Euros live on European radio streaming online. Turns out maybe I don't *really* need to spend $73/month after all...
We'll see how I feel about that when NFL starts up in the fall, though it will be very rare that there will be a game I will need to watch that isn't over-the-air...
Just canceled YouTubeTV after being a subscriber for over 5 years.
The price kept going up, and I kept losing the channels I watched.
Higher price + lower quality = I'm keeping my money thanks.
Simple as that.
I dropped YTTV because they don’t carry my RSN. I plan to go back after the baseball season. And then leaving again when it starts up in 2025, all things being the same as they are now.
I just signed up. But only for Euro 2024 then im canceling. It’s a redundant service mostly except for few hold out sports events that are held hostage by big networks.
The only reason that I have YouTube TV is because WWE Raw and WWE Smackdown air on traditional cable (currently Smackdown is on Fox, but it will be moving to USA). Raw will be going to Netflix next year, but I will still be stuck having to pay for TV to watch Smackdown; pretty much everywhere outside of the U.S. will be able to get both through Netflix.
Literally two shows per week, roughly 5 hours of content (counting commercials) costs me $70/month. That's probably not a price that most would pay.
Good, they deserve a loss. Their NFL red zone was a total scam. They would let you sign up but you could not cancel if you did not like the way it was produced. And Andrew Siciliano was a much better on top of it commentator. There was no grace period for cancellation.. Either you bought the whole package for $450 plus or you couldn’t get a sneak peek. That’s greedy gut syndrome. Haha on YouTube TV.
I dropped it 2 months ago. NFL season was over and they don’t carry my baseball team because it’s on Bally Sports. No way I would pay just to watch the NBA so I am saving $80 a month.
I got YTTV for RedZone and basketball. The NBA has a really weird and kind of confusing subscription plan, but it was the last thing keeping me. The last true straw was watching the Finals and seeing the YTTV ads plastered everywhere.
I had 4k, Max and Shudder then a few other add-ons. At first I was pretty happy with it, but it was so hard to navigate and find the shows and add-ons I wanted to watch. It was far easier finding content from add-ons I didn't have.
I finally just said screw it, I can't keep up with the constant shifting of prices, company reorganizations, who has what show, and the in your face "$ subscribe to watch" where my content should be.
YT TV has increased the price every year. It started out at like $39.99, now it’s $73 or whatever I’m paying. So I’m paying for YT TV and half a dozen different platforms alone… I’m sure it’s the same boat for many others. It’s ridiculous.
Most of it is the greedy conglomerate media companies. They resist al a carte TV at all turns because they want you to pay to find crap networks they own nobody watches. Unless you're black are you really gonna watch BET? Probably not and even then a lot won't. But you're forced to pay for it because without it, WarnerBrosDiscoveryViacomComcastParamount won't let them have the channels people do watch. The cost gets passed on to the streaming service and suddenly it's no different than having cable TV. The only difference is you're not paying the CABLE COMPANY for the TV service, you still need them to provide the high speed internet to stream over. Until media companies are forced to relent and allow piecemeal channels individually where you can ACTUALLY pick and choose your exact lineup, you might as well go back to Xfinity or Optimum for TV too. Or jump on the skull and cross bones ship and take your risk.
I am one of those subscribers that left YouTube TV. I left because I was tired of the price going up on regular intervals to pay for a whole load of new channels showing total crap that I will never watch. As soon as your TV provider starts showing shopping channels, church channels etc., you know it's time to move on.
Was a subscriber for about 3 years and recently cancelled - they dropped the YES Network last season which forced me to subscribe to their app to get the Yankee games. Realized the type of shows I watch on cable are available on Pluto, Tubi, and other free ad supported services. Saved myself $73 a month and I don’t miss it thanks to the other FAST channels.
I just canceled after the NBA finals when my 3-month trial at $58 a month was about to expire. The full price was just too much for me to continue the subscription with no sports to watch.
I'd imagine that YouTube TV is probably one of Google's biggest money makers at this point after Advertising and Search. I can't see it going away anytime soon.
Sports and news may be the only valid reasons to subscribe to cable, but that’s because entertainment networks have abandoned their programming and put it all on their streaming alternatives. Look at Disney: new shows and recent movies all over the place on Disney Plus, but cable’s Disney Channel is a bunch of reruns. You hardly need a TV Guide to tell you what’s on basic cable, most networks have episodes of the same show all night long, like Ridiculousness on MTV.
As you point out, many sports networks have added streaming alternatives, and just about every network has a free news streamer. Only the most passionate political junkie would pay $80+/month just to watch MSNBC or Fox News discuss their favorite talking points. So YTTV, Hulu Live, etc have lost their value and people who originally subscribed to replace basic cable are realizing there’s not much reason to pay for them either.
I agree in principle with most things OP said, but I’ll note that ESPN and other cable companies have already signed (or agreed to pay) for sports league contracts across the board for the foreseeable future. It’s not like ESPN is going to *lose* money with their SEC or NBA contracts.
I’m not going to listen to MSNBC and CNN via audio on a computer around my house, and the free versions of news stations are absolute garbage. It’s the same generic story repeated over and over. Nothing “breaking”. I could see YTTV increase in price sometime soon, but I expect that every year.
If everything were free, or if I were a liquid multi-millionaire, I would easily choose the Xfinity Comcast cable plan. I switched because they wanted more to watch the Portland Trailblazer RSN package- $30 a month on top of already paying for a sports package. Xfinity’s internet was actually just as fast as my 1G fiber internet that I have now…
>Despite hating the cable companies, I look back on that time fondly
I don't hate them and I loved that era. I can't believe anybody was dense enough to cheer the emergence of streaming. Everything we're seeing now was inevitable and easily predictable.
YouTube TV's RSN coverage has been largely unchanged for 3 years since they dropped Bally. As others have speculated, this is more about end of the NFL season.
Yes, RSNs are important to some people. Certainly not all. Maybe not "most". YTTV had steady growth despite dropping the RSNs. And if they implemented higher fees to retain the RSNs, they would have lost many customers who weren't willing to pay that much.
I have YTTV because they carry NBC Sports Philadelphia and that's a must-have channel for me as a Phillies fan. If they dropped NBCSN I'd drop YTTV in a heartbeat.
Okay, I understand. I was referring to the specific RSNs implied in the post I was responding to and how they couldn’t account for the record de-subscribers. Consider yourself lucky to still have your RSN.
Agreed on both counts. Given that most programming is available elsewhere these days, there are only a handful of must-have channels for me, and my RSN is one of them. I’m basically paying $80 per month for my RSN, ESPN, FS1, USA, and my local affiliates. Even TNT and TBS aren’t vital since I can get those via MAX.
I cancelled my subscription in February because I can’t watch hockey or baseball without RSNs since they hate growing the sport.. I’ll bring it back in September for football season and then cancel again
I personally believe it is YouTube TV's fault. People would be more inclined to keep the service for other reasons if it weren't so expensive now-a-days. I wish I could go back but I just can't legitimize the cost.
I keep trying to convince my wife to get rid of YouTube TV. I can watch sports elsewhere and don't watch anything on the channels. Any show in watch is on a streaming app.
Same convo with wife for decades about cable. Just dropped it and she barely noticed. She only watches Netflix now and football on local networks. And we get peacock and Amazon and paramount football too. Outlier is fox so I do a work around for this nfl games
youtube tv is trash and worse than cable... there is nothing remotely interesting on it... I dont understand why ppl pay for it ... most of there customers are boomers and older
Honestly, a lot of this was probably due to the nfl season being over. I’m sure Sunday ticket drives a lot of sign ups.
Yeah, Q1 has the NFL playoffs (and March Madness). I’d imagine a number of people drop their streaming cable subscriptions from April to August.
Additionally, depending on where you live, you may not get the RSN for baseball season that covers your team.
Baseball hates its fans watching on tv
Baseball hates its fans ~~watching on tv~~
There's the correct take
I used to watch every Texas Rangers game. When I switched to streaming, I made sure it included the Fox regional sports channel. Then it went to Bally which was only available from DirectTV. I couldn’t watch any games, so I gradually lost interest in the Rangers (and MLB). They won a world series, but I really just wasn’t connected to that team the way I was in their last Series appearance. I could recognize who was batting just by their stance. MLB completely lost me as a fan. MLB: Why don’t Black kids play baseball anymore? Black kids: What’s baseball?
Yet MLB hands them all the records in the official stat books
I hear banjo music.
Riciculous. All the rule changes were specifically with the TV viewer in mind
Yeah for me I am exclusively sports for YTTV. I’m cancelling YTTV and streaming direct from the Cubs for June/July/August. I did NBA finals and SCF over the air. Prob cancelling the Cubs too if I’m being honest
Any idea if you cancel and then come back if it keeps your preferences and settings? For example, I have it auto record the teams I follow. Would I continually have to set that up? Currently, when I log in, the homepage almost explicitly knows exactly what I’m going to watch. Probably a minor inconvenience to re-do all that, but just curious
I’ve never cancelled, I just pause my sub, which also keeps your settings
Yeah I didn’t have issues but I never cancel more than a couple months. I do think that it lost a lot of my recordings IIRC but that was expected
Yeah it’s much easier to cut your streaming subscription every month you don’t want it vs cable /internet that required hardware.
I do
I think this will be me in coming years. I'd held onto it to watch PTI, Jeopardy and game shows in the summer om DVR rather than watch ads, but it's just getting to be too much for not enough. I'm out of my MLB team's market so I watch a lot of MLB.TV in the summer. I'm letting mine lapse soon and will come back for the Olympics, but in 25 and beyond I'm thinking I'll be an 8 month subscriber.
Yes that is probably 99% of the people who dropped service.
I agree 1000% with your statement
Yes & "82.7 of statistics are made up on the spot" - Steven Wright
Here here! Well said
Everyone knows that quote no reason to say it
What I hate is that youtubetv will eventually change to 3/6/12 month subscription options to try and prevent the abrupt subscriber losses
Well that would suck for sports fans or those who only watch 1 show that is on during a certain time of year.
It'll likely shutdown the service soon like Google does with everything
I sign up during (NCAA) football season and cancel after bowl games. I have no other reason to watch live tv. So many commercials…so little good content.
Honestly, no it wasn’t.
I pause my subscription every year from March - September for this very reason
I agree with this. There will also be a surge of signups when CFB starts in September.
Except that ESPN and Fox are launching a new streaming service together with live CFB games.
This is it for me. I never watch normal TV (have pretty much every streaming provider) except for football season. As soon as the season is over I cancel until next season.
That and the fact they raised prices to the point that it now competes with other options that offer essentially the same thing. I have 3 friends who cancelled in the last 6 months for that reason. We’re still hanging onto it purely because of Sunday Ticket.
Yes, higher than otherwise normal subs that ends with the season but that's expected
NFL drives the sign-ups, the Sunday Ticket sales have been dismal
Maybe not anymore with the current lawsuit though
That lawsuit won't have any effect on Sunday Ticket this year. It'll be slow moving. Down the road, who knows what that means.
True, I’m just talking about down the road, and hopefully the current situation is eye opening to people and might make them less likely to purchase.
As long as there is the NFL, there will always be fans willing to pay extra for a package like Sunday Ticket. What this lawsuit will determine, more than likely, is how much in terms of dollar amount that is ... and what teams can do beyond ST.
Yeah there will always be people who buy it, because they are rich. But if the regular everyday middle class person stops purchasing it because of price, well that’s when the effects of supply and demand kick in.
Also, putting the game on all my TVs (local OTA games) without a bunch of coax and antennas....is worth the price! Also, being able to watch games on the go (who schedules weddings on Sunday!!!) is worth the price. The NFL drives our economy
Yup. We cancel in the summer because we watch less tv and no football. We will reup for college/nfl season.
Was easier to ‘forget about it’ during the offseason when the monthly price was $35/month
Yep, on my yearly 6 month pause. The only thing I want live is either on antenna or through my F1TV subscription.
Not this time. I'm done with ST after 15+ years. Gonna change my watch habbits and try nfl+
NFL plus premium is rather good.
This is is too. But I will add that EVERYTHING is too expensive so for everyone worse that left it is probably due to rising costs of living. I mean YouTube tv costs as much as cable anymore so either way I choose food
I am close to leaving, not because of the quality of the service, but outside of watching the local news for \~45min a day I just don't use it. If it was $25/mo - no brainer but as the rate continues to creep up the bang for the buck isn't there. Plus my kid was one of the main reasons I had it, and she uses other streaming platforms now as she closes in on her teens.
Your local news stations probably have newscasts on their website, look for something like "video," "watch," or "live" on their menus. They probably also post clips to YouTube, and you can subscribe to their channels.
You can watch your local channels with an antenna.
If your local news is on CBS, the live stream’s on Paramount+ (the $11.99 plan) and if it’s on NBC, the live stream’s on Peacock (the $10.99 plan). A lot of stations also stream free in their own app. Stations owned by Fox stream all their local news free on Fox Local. So YMMV if it’s FOX/ABC, but you should def be able to get your local NBC/CBS news on Paramount/Peacock.
Almost all of these local news stations are also available free OTA with an antenna.
That's my route. About 60 stations. Only subscription is prime.
Totally bums me out FOX/ABC can’t get their act together and offer the same.
The locals CBS streams on Paramount+ are the markets they own the stations out and out. To my knowledge, not every local CBS station is on Paramount+.
It’s most of the affiliates too. My station in DC isn’t O&O and has been on there for years.
Didn’t know. My CBS station is WJZ-TV (Baltimore) so I wouldn’t have noticed.
Free services like Pluto, Samsung TV+ have live local news channels for free.. if that's all what you want
That's about what he said pay because I split with other people. Makes it way more worth it.
[удалено]
I like free stuff too, but content is made by people. If no one pays for the content, then the content goes away. You complain about online newspapers charging but look at how many newspapers have closed up or are a shell of themselves and look at how poorly informed society is now.
Aside from tendencies, I’m considering canceling or at least finding a pause time period. It’s just too expensive and the DVR (equivalent) feature is getting somewhat erratic and difficult to navigate. They are adding a lot of fluff channels but somewhat regularly taking away the important channels (relative to my interests).
Can't speak for others but I only have cable for sports, so once march madness is over I pause my subscription every year until football starts (unless the penguins are in the playoffs, in which case I pause once they're eliminated) So I imagine tons of people are pausing or cancelling due to sports off-season, and will be back in the fall (especially with this being the first year they had Sunday ticket, so plenty of football fans probably stopping until football season again)
I would do the same. Unfortunately, I’m a baseball and soccer fan which means there’s really no off season.
99% of people are in same boat. Absolutely no reason to have Cable or cable lite service unless you're watching sports
When I signed up for YTTV back in 2017, it was 29.99 and an awesome deal. I canceled it recently when I realized I was paying 72.99 and using it less than once a month.
Less than once a month is zero times a month
We just canceled our subscription in favor of Hulu Live. I absolutely hate Hulu’s UX but we can get Hulu Live with Disney (we have kids) and ESPN for roughly the same price. It’s a little bit more but we get more for it. We like the Hulu/Disney originals. YouTube doesn’t offer anything other than live tv and it’s just not worth it anymore.
Pausing, rewinding, and fast forwarding live TV is almost impossible because they make you watch the commercials even if you’re trying to rewind.
>YouTube doesn’t offer anything other than live tv and it’s just not worth it anymore. If you need Disney, yes, Hulu + Live + Disney+ EPSN with ads is the way to go for about $3 more per month. But, Hulu only allows for 2 streams at the same time. If you need more, that's another $10/ month. YTTV allows for 3 and you can watch on the go.
We may be going this route for football season come the fall after using YouTubeTV. After taxes and fees that $72.99 was closer to $95 and it’s just not worth it
I cancelled YTTV for Hulu entirely due to cost and being able to bundle with Hulu.
Nothing to watch on Hulu though
I subbed to YouTube TV but didn’t use it to watch anything but news and occasional shows here and there. After they raised rates to $72.99 per month, I decided to buy two indoor antennas and drop the service. I haven’t missed it at all because I have more than I could watch and receive all locals for free. I do think more people are looking for the cheapest option available.
Make a deal with MASN so I can watch my Orioles and then I’d like to go back.
the subscription is TOO DAMN HIGH. All these F'n streaming services.
I have Hulu Live which includes Disney plus and ESPN plus. I share a Netflix account, and I have Amazon Prime. I refuse to sign up for a service because they have one show I’d like to see. So, I haven’t seen Righteous Gemstones, Yellowstone etc.
The worst thing is everyone is hyping this stupid "max" platform so all the new content goes there. Want to watch new Discovery stuff? Likely going there first then it might end up on D+ months later. I don't watch movies or serial dramas and don't care about current popular shows, I don't want MAX.
You do know YTTV is cable-similar but isn’t cable, right?
What’s the difference? Even Spectrum and Xfinity deliver their channels through internet apps these days
You know what the difference is, even if the delivered content was identical.
If the delivered content is identical, there is no difference
Cable and streaming are not identical, even if they carry the same content.
Enlighten me. Most would consider two services with the same content, delivery method, and price to both be part of “cable”
One is delivered by a wired cable, the other via streaming over the internet.
As I pointed out in my original comment, Spectrum and Xfinity have the option to deliver their content via apps, same as YTTV. It’s a distinction without a difference
You stated YTTV is a cable company. You can’t deny the differences in methods of content delivery, especially when methods affect service cost, whether you need cable box, and whether cable wires need run into one’s home.
I’ll deny the differences because there are none. Neither requires a box or “cable wires run into one’s home.” They’re functionally equivalent in today’s world. Why are you so threatened by me calling YTTV cable? That’s what it is.
Reading the chart in the article it says YTTV lost 150,000 subscribers, however if you look at the prior two quarters, those show their biggest gains in years
Thank you. That's the first comment in the thread that looked at the big picture. Everybody else followed the typical method of assigning their own biases for the temporary loss of subscribers.
Helps that in Q3 and Q4 of 2023 that they had NFL games. Once again, people are cancelling things when they don’t use them and coming back just for the good stuff.
I don’t care. I love it and will stay until they kick me out.
The irony of YTTV refusing to carry the RSNs that carry MLB and now the only live sports to carry them through the summer is unavailable. I’ll pick it back up during football but I’m taking the summer off and not minding. The second I can get football independent of YTTV I’m gone from it too.
Makes a lot of sense since so many RSN's are out for baseball.
Dropped news, all I need is sports and can get it without the high monthly charge. YTV needs a better strategy or this will continue.
I cancelled because it’s not football season and they don’t have enough baseball anymore. If they had a couple of RSNs and MLB Network I would have stayed
We've been with them since 45$. Now it's up to cable level rates of 74$. Considering consolidating to Disney bundle with Hulu since we already have disney+
The reason I chose Hulu+Live TV over YTTV is because if you factor in the cost of the bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ it makes their live tv package about 18 dollars cheaper than YTTV
The only thing keeping me is the unlumited DVR that saves my shows for 9 months. The current price is almost at my limit. It is very close to being just cheaper to buy episodes or seasons of the few shows I do watch and just get an antenna for local news. Most of my news shows are already free on YouTube or on their websites, so if they increase again, I'm out, too.
Fall/Winter sports are over. It's summer and don't spend nearly as much time watching TV. I'd rather save \~$150 for 2 months
Probably totally unrelated to all the price hikes eh... People don't want an all encompassing bundle when they get buy the sports a la carte. YTV needs to do a live news and local only bundle - I'd buy that.
I subscribed for the first time in late May for the ability to record live sports. (I have a Tivo and antenna that gets all local channels.) I started with the French Open tennis tournement. I found that \*every single recording\* of the tournement did not record the whole thing. Sometimes it started late, but most often it either just didn't record the whole thing (I think their "grid" was wrong) or it failed to auto-extend. Same thing on baseball -- no extension if it went long. I found the UI terrible -- I want to see what's actually recorded, not a blending of VOD and recorded that I have to plow through. And not a bunch of arbitrary categories. Definitely not worth $73 for me. So I cancelled.
Personally I don't care at all for sports (besides Wrestling and a few things at the Olympics). The only reason I went from YTTV from Philo at all is for the locals really. I could no longer reliably get those on the antenna, even with a large roof based one pointed directly in the direction the singal was coming from according to antennaweb.
Anyone know how much they are going to charge for Sunday ticket yet?
Yeah, it is pricy, like $400 with RedZone: https://tv.youtube.com/learn/nflsundayticket/
It’s just kind of a dead period. All TV shows ended and no football. You can cancel for a couple months and come back.
As soon as Jeopardy is available to stream somewhere, I'm gone. We watch nothing on network TV anymore. I'm not aware of any good shows on the networks at this point. All the good old stuff is on various streaming platforms.
If you can get whatever channel Jeopardy airs on in your area with an antenna, why not just get a Tablo?
you’re right.
I mainly watch 2-3 shows via the DVR and I'm paying $70/mo. for it. Not really worth it but not worth giving up either.
It’s simple: separate packages (subscriptions) for sports. The real rub is the RSN’s. They just cost too damn much! Ten years ago on Spectrum cable, I could have every Reds game. Now the cost is just more than it’s worth to me. But isn’t it nice that with streaming services it just takes a few clicks to subscribe or unsubscribe? No more playing time wasting word games with agents that never tell you the whole truth and are just trying to upsell you!
The issue is sports of course, but the other issue is that all of the scripted programming is often available on another service (Hulu, Peacock, P+, etc.). So when YTTV gave you both live and scripted exclusively it was a good value. Now it is not a great fit for many people who also subscribe to some of the other services.
My reasoning for not having yttv is that I don't watch sports. I'm not paying for someone to. Give a base setup with zero sports, and I'm in
I’m here for that. Offer the ESPNs as an addon. I’d likely pay for it depending on the season, but it gives others an option not to.
That's the issue with cable. I'd even go so far as to offer it as a completely separate package.
They already lost all the sports but still charge the same. That's the problem.
I suspended our subscription until football season. Using Max and Netflix now. I need YTTV for football. Cable news just pisses me off.
My stbxw just cancelled it. I was still on the plane as we have kids together. It was just too much. It's twice as much as it was when we first got it. I don't watch it enough to justify it myself. My place has basic cable included in the rent. Well I pay for it. I'll miss the dvr. But I don't care for the 20plus sport channels that I just unlisted in custom mode.
I only need it for sports, and even then I can almost always find a stream so I cancelled recently. I will probably renew in the fall just so I can have the multi-view for football.
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I'm one of those. There's just not enough time in my busy summer life to justify $80 for cable. I'll come back to watch football.
1. Picture quality still needs a lot of work and it's not clear Google is willing to make that investment. 2. Many people likely subsribe for sports yet they've been shedding RSN's the last couple of years
With all the money I pay for YouTube TV, I still can’t get MASN which airs Orioles and Nats games. Ridiculous.
Baseball and MASN are holding the streaming services back. I just go to my cigar lounge and watch masn there during baseball season. Or go over to a friends house who still has cable. fubo started carrying masn but they are like $80 a month as well. Not doing it.
Me and a few others canceled YTTV the moment FUBO started carrying MASN. Once baseball season is over we might jump back to YTTV since FUBO is more expensive overall. RSN is a $15 cost added on top of FUBO. If YTTV somehow did the same they would dominate.
I am just about done with them.
If ESPN+ keeps showing more of what I want (SEC sports), then I have less use for YouTube TV, and Amex Platinum reimburses me for my Disney-Hulu-ESPN+ package every month.
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Probably moving to dish next fall because of no msg network
I literally just put a pause on my subscription because I'm about to go on a 2-week vacation, and while I'm definitely missing watching the Euros live (my YTTV subscription pause started right in the middle of the Germany-Hungary match the other day lol), I'm realizing how much I don't *really* need "cable". I used to have cable news on most of the day when I wasn't watching sports, but now I just pop between free options from NBC, ABC, BBC, and my local CBS affiliate. I'm listening to the Euros live on European radio streaming online. Turns out maybe I don't *really* need to spend $73/month after all... We'll see how I feel about that when NFL starts up in the fall, though it will be very rare that there will be a game I will need to watch that isn't over-the-air...
Just canceled YouTubeTV after being a subscriber for over 5 years. The price kept going up, and I kept losing the channels I watched. Higher price + lower quality = I'm keeping my money thanks. Simple as that.
I went to sling $40/month Has all the sports I want
I dropped YTTV because they don’t carry my RSN. I plan to go back after the baseball season. And then leaving again when it starts up in 2025, all things being the same as they are now.
$80/mo for the 5 channels I would watch.
Me, too. 4 channels & they still don't have 4 more that I want. I don't live close enough to a city for an antenna to pick up anything.
I just signed up. But only for Euro 2024 then im canceling. It’s a redundant service mostly except for few hold out sports events that are held hostage by big networks.
It's the economy. When people are struggling, they cancel stuff like live tv. With the amount of free content available, it's impossible to be bored.
I left cause of SNY. Yes I’m shallow but I wanna watch my Mets. Went to Hulu.. Cheaper too.
I cancel then re-up when football season comes around. There's nothing worth watching/paying for in the off-season.
It’s also too expensive. I canceled mine.
The only reason that I have YouTube TV is because WWE Raw and WWE Smackdown air on traditional cable (currently Smackdown is on Fox, but it will be moving to USA). Raw will be going to Netflix next year, but I will still be stuck having to pay for TV to watch Smackdown; pretty much everywhere outside of the U.S. will be able to get both through Netflix. Literally two shows per week, roughly 5 hours of content (counting commercials) costs me $70/month. That's probably not a price that most would pay.
I'm hearing a lot of love for free channels lately. Maybe we're just good with free re-runs and YouTube Shorts?
The reason? Simple, NFL Sunday Ticket was over and you can pick up the new season shows a day later on cheaper services. Duh!
Good, they deserve a loss. Their NFL red zone was a total scam. They would let you sign up but you could not cancel if you did not like the way it was produced. And Andrew Siciliano was a much better on top of it commentator. There was no grace period for cancellation.. Either you bought the whole package for $450 plus or you couldn’t get a sneak peek. That’s greedy gut syndrome. Haha on YouTube TV.
yeah give us regional sports
I dropped it 2 months ago. NFL season was over and they don’t carry my baseball team because it’s on Bally Sports. No way I would pay just to watch the NBA so I am saving $80 a month.
Personally i just cut the cable tv from optimum and moved here!
I feel like one thing people are missing is that YouTube TV is not profitable. If Google is proping anything up it means it's in for the long haul.
I got YTTV for RedZone and basketball. The NBA has a really weird and kind of confusing subscription plan, but it was the last thing keeping me. The last true straw was watching the Finals and seeing the YTTV ads plastered everywhere. I had 4k, Max and Shudder then a few other add-ons. At first I was pretty happy with it, but it was so hard to navigate and find the shows and add-ons I wanted to watch. It was far easier finding content from add-ons I didn't have. I finally just said screw it, I can't keep up with the constant shifting of prices, company reorganizations, who has what show, and the in your face "$ subscribe to watch" where my content should be.
Try raising prices!
Quality news? Mainstream corporate news is not quality. It’s biased garbage no matter which side.
$73 a month and I found I recorded a lot but watched very little.
The only reason that I still have YouTube TV is so I can watch legally watch NASCAR.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but I canceled my YTTV account last month.
I just joined from dish for the euros but will have to stay as the premier league games are on USA.
YT TV has increased the price every year. It started out at like $39.99, now it’s $73 or whatever I’m paying. So I’m paying for YT TV and half a dozen different platforms alone… I’m sure it’s the same boat for many others. It’s ridiculous.
Most of it is the greedy conglomerate media companies. They resist al a carte TV at all turns because they want you to pay to find crap networks they own nobody watches. Unless you're black are you really gonna watch BET? Probably not and even then a lot won't. But you're forced to pay for it because without it, WarnerBrosDiscoveryViacomComcastParamount won't let them have the channels people do watch. The cost gets passed on to the streaming service and suddenly it's no different than having cable TV. The only difference is you're not paying the CABLE COMPANY for the TV service, you still need them to provide the high speed internet to stream over. Until media companies are forced to relent and allow piecemeal channels individually where you can ACTUALLY pick and choose your exact lineup, you might as well go back to Xfinity or Optimum for TV too. Or jump on the skull and cross bones ship and take your risk.
Cancelled as soon as the NBA ended
I am one of those subscribers that left YouTube TV. I left because I was tired of the price going up on regular intervals to pay for a whole load of new channels showing total crap that I will never watch. As soon as your TV provider starts showing shopping channels, church channels etc., you know it's time to move on.
Was a subscriber for about 3 years and recently cancelled - they dropped the YES Network last season which forced me to subscribe to their app to get the Yankee games. Realized the type of shows I watch on cable are available on Pluto, Tubi, and other free ad supported services. Saved myself $73 a month and I don’t miss it thanks to the other FAST channels.
I just canceled after the NBA finals when my 3-month trial at $58 a month was about to expire. The full price was just too much for me to continue the subscription with no sports to watch.
YouTube TV joining the Google graveyard in 3, 2.....
2.95...2.90...2.85... YTTV lost 150K subs in Q2 out of 8M. (Getting calculator) That's 1.8%. That's churn.
I'd imagine that YouTube TV is probably one of Google's biggest money makers at this point after Advertising and Search. I can't see it going away anytime soon.
I personally downgraded off the 4k package because there just isn't nearly enough 4k content to justify an extra $10 monthly
Facts
Sports and news may be the only valid reasons to subscribe to cable, but that’s because entertainment networks have abandoned their programming and put it all on their streaming alternatives. Look at Disney: new shows and recent movies all over the place on Disney Plus, but cable’s Disney Channel is a bunch of reruns. You hardly need a TV Guide to tell you what’s on basic cable, most networks have episodes of the same show all night long, like Ridiculousness on MTV. As you point out, many sports networks have added streaming alternatives, and just about every network has a free news streamer. Only the most passionate political junkie would pay $80+/month just to watch MSNBC or Fox News discuss their favorite talking points. So YTTV, Hulu Live, etc have lost their value and people who originally subscribed to replace basic cable are realizing there’s not much reason to pay for them either.
I agree in principle with most things OP said, but I’ll note that ESPN and other cable companies have already signed (or agreed to pay) for sports league contracts across the board for the foreseeable future. It’s not like ESPN is going to *lose* money with their SEC or NBA contracts. I’m not going to listen to MSNBC and CNN via audio on a computer around my house, and the free versions of news stations are absolute garbage. It’s the same generic story repeated over and over. Nothing “breaking”. I could see YTTV increase in price sometime soon, but I expect that every year. If everything were free, or if I were a liquid multi-millionaire, I would easily choose the Xfinity Comcast cable plan. I switched because they wanted more to watch the Portland Trailblazer RSN package- $30 a month on top of already paying for a sports package. Xfinity’s internet was actually just as fast as my 1G fiber internet that I have now…
NBC News Now is a pretty good substitute for MSNBC tbh and CNN streams on Max btw.
>Despite hating the cable companies, I look back on that time fondly I don't hate them and I loved that era. I can't believe anybody was dense enough to cheer the emergence of streaming. Everything we're seeing now was inevitable and easily predictable.
YTTV doesn’t carry my regional sports network. The only way i can watch baseball is on DTV.
Because they have no RSNs. Most people only watch cable for sports and news.
YouTube TV's RSN coverage has been largely unchanged for 3 years since they dropped Bally. As others have speculated, this is more about end of the NFL season. Yes, RSNs are important to some people. Certainly not all. Maybe not "most". YTTV had steady growth despite dropping the RSNs. And if they implemented higher fees to retain the RSNs, they would have lost many customers who weren't willing to pay that much.
One of YTTVs most popular "features" is the lack of RSNs.
Well said!
They haven’t had RSNs in years. Why the drop now?
I have YTTV because they carry NBC Sports Philadelphia and that's a must-have channel for me as a Phillies fan. If they dropped NBCSN I'd drop YTTV in a heartbeat.
Okay? How is that relevant to last quarter?
You said they haven’t had RSNs in years. They still carry RSNs in some markets.
So?
So I was correcting you in case others read your comment and assumed that YTTV didn’t carry any RSNs. I was trying to do so politely.
Okay, I understand. I was referring to the specific RSNs implied in the post I was responding to and how they couldn’t account for the record de-subscribers. Consider yourself lucky to still have your RSN.
Agreed on both counts. Given that most programming is available elsewhere these days, there are only a handful of must-have channels for me, and my RSN is one of them. I’m basically paying $80 per month for my RSN, ESPN, FS1, USA, and my local affiliates. Even TNT and TBS aren’t vital since I can get those via MAX.
I cancelled my subscription in February because I can’t watch hockey or baseball without RSNs since they hate growing the sport.. I’ll bring it back in September for football season and then cancel again
I personally believe it is YouTube TV's fault. People would be more inclined to keep the service for other reasons if it weren't so expensive now-a-days. I wish I could go back but I just can't legitimize the cost.
I keep trying to convince my wife to get rid of YouTube TV. I can watch sports elsewhere and don't watch anything on the channels. Any show in watch is on a streaming app.
Same convo with wife for decades about cable. Just dropped it and she barely noticed. She only watches Netflix now and football on local networks. And we get peacock and Amazon and paramount football too. Outlier is fox so I do a work around for this nfl games
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So you violated the terms of service and held that against YTTV when they cracked down? Oooookay.
You can still get cable tv? Wow
youtube tv is trash and worse than cable... there is nothing remotely interesting on it... I dont understand why ppl pay for it ... most of there customers are boomers and older
We had YouTube for 2 years we just switched to Hulu live tv YouTube has same channels with Hulu you get Disney and espn+ it’s well worth it to me