We only have Netflix and YouTubeTV. That's $75 for content/mo. Much cheaper than cable in our area (adding in the hardware + DVR services). We have a handful of shows we watch plus a handful of NCAA basketball and the Olympics (this year isn't working out at all..). We've looked at this very objectively (spreadsheets!) and with what we want from our TV service YouTubeTV is the best deal.
Unless you must have live sports/CNBC or can’t have your internet slow down, how are YouTube TV or cable packages attractive? We have Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Apple TV+. Even when the free/promotional periods are over, they would still end up costing less than a semi-decent cable package, but with way more useful content (in fact, more than we could ever hope to watch), and little to no ads.
YouTube TV's value proposition includes DVR and, if you're in your home area, the ability to fast forward through commercials for DVR'd content.
The tricky part I'm noticing is how traditional providers are bundling. Mediacom provides internet, cable, and phone service in the Midwest. My parents got a better total price for the same service by bundling it all together. When I look at pricing, the marginal cost of basic cable TV would be a few extra dollars per month.
I'm definitely switching away from YouTube TV, but need to decide if I should go with basic cable (which won't have everything my household desires) or Hulu.
Streaming TV is a different experience than cable but it's not THAT hard. I push one power button and my TV, soundbar and streaming device power up. That same button shuts everything down when I'm done watching. If they ever get out of sync, pressing the home button forces things back in sync.
The interface for YoutubeTV looks an awful lot like the interface for a cable guide. There's a small learning curve but it can't take more than 15 minutes to understand 90% of what you'd ever want to do.
$73 a month all in is a heck of a lot less than the $90 plus taxes and fees + cable box rental fees (per tv) plus sport network and local network carriage fees, DVR fees, etc. Last time I looked, I couldn't get 2 TVs with an equivalent package for less than $140 from my cable company and that included a contract and the need to renegotiate every 12-24 months.
I actually pay for YouTube TV even though the price to add cable to my plan would be about the same price. The difference is I get better channels (sports!), DVR, multi-room support, and streaming anywhere outside the house. If I wanted any of those features from my cable company, I'd be paying over double what I pay now.
YouTube TV is a cable replacement service and costs around $70/mo last I checked. It has all the network and local tv channels as well as the usual hbo/showtime/espn/etc packages for an added cost. TV guide, DVR, multiple streams, etc.
What you just described, minus YouTube is $40 a month. That’s really not that difficult for a lot of people, compared to how much cable use to cost, plus add ons. I already pay for Hulu, Netflix, and HBO, and I don’t mind paying another $7 for Disney+
Content isn’t free, and makers deserve to get paid.
Signing up for Hulu and Disney+ will give you all the content you’re looking for in the same price envelope sub $15k households are already willing to pay.
I actually just ditched my Comcast cable subscription for Google YouTube TV (https://tv.youtube.com) and loving it. Paired it with a Google Chromecast Ultra and Samsung TV.
Saved $60 a month and only missing History and Discovery channels. They have nearly all major US sporting networks and events as well.
Interesting -- this weekend I finally gave up on YoutubeTV and ordered Spectrum cable again. Between the rising costs (now 69.95 a month) and the loss of both regional sports networks (I haven't been able to watch Texas Rangers baseball or Mavericks basketball in almost a year since they dropped the Fox Sports RSNs) and the Tennis channel the package is worth much less to me. The only real reason I want cable is for live sports. All the other network programming is of very little interest to me.
My total cost for a competitive package with CloudDVR (what used to be YoutubeTVs killer feature) and 400Mbps internet is now lower by about 30 bucks a month, which is not nothing.
I live in hope that one day I will be able to buy a cable/streaming package that consists of Sports plus Local Channels with cloud DVR and very high bitrate streaming. That is all that I want.
Playstation Vue was a great service. Since then streaming "TV" has become less of a value.
Currently we get sling, which is $45 for the typical mainstream cable channels and 2 local channels (ABC and Fox). HuluTV is ok, since it includes Disney+, but about the same price as YouTubeTV. DirectTV Stream is a very complete offering, but barely cheaper than cable (and only because of the lack of equipment fees and taxes)
Don’t underestimate how much cable TV costs: I did my budget recently and added up all my services together, having Netflix (highest tier), YT Premium (family, includes music streaming), Discovery+ (ad-free), and Hulu (ad-free), an all comes in at about $62.
That’s about the same price as live cable as a standalone product, and yet cable has advertisements which none of the above services have.
About the only complaint you might have is that I haven’t covered every single television studio (not included: Max, Paramount+, Disney+), but you could always rotate subscriptions in and out and still have a lot of them active at the same time.
Cable really just is that bad. Or, alternative take, cable sucks your dollars away and sends them to live sports and cable news.
I have homes in 3 different cities, so YoutubeTV is my goto streaming service. That replaced what was 3 different DirecTV setups which became outrageously expensive.
AppleTV for all theater releases and some special shows.
Netflix for their content
HBO Max is bundled with my AT&T account.
This just about covers everything our family could possibly consume or be interested in mediawise.
Tried Sling.tv, which starts at $25 for some set of broadcast channels. The value wasn't there for me. Netflix + Prime is cheaper and has more content.
In my case, I get 1 Gb/s (symmetrical, no data cap, and they gave me the modem/router) internet from CenturyLink for $65/month, and we decided YouTube TV was the best choice that gave us local channels (not their subchannels, darn it, and CW is still "on demand" rather than live from the local affiliate), which is important to us because the apartment we're in is the worst possible place to have an antenna. Even with the YouTube price increase it's well under what Mediacom was socking us for after the first year for 60 Mb/s down, 10 Mb/s up, tightly data capped internet and an admittedly wider choice of TV, so for now we'll stay (but start researching alternatives). (Sports? I have the Rhett Butler attitude towards them.)
As a former YouTube TV user who switched to Hulu a few months back, I'm frustrated I need to switch again.
When YouTube TV upped their price, they brought a few more channels on board (which I had no interest in), so it kinda felt like they weren't just doing a money grab.
There are about 5 channels I care about at all. We're going to switch to Sling. We had Sling back in 2016 with alright results, but weren't impressed with app stability and the frequency of steaming issues. In practice, using any steaming provider login to the network-specific app gives good results.
Cutting the cord was a great proposition 5 years ago, but it has been so painful to get consistent service at a price that doesn't make a basic cable package look competitive.
They're also no longer price-competitive with traditional cable TV, which many people rely on as their only source of wired Internet. When it costs $60/mo for Internet, and only another $40/mo to bundle cable TV, why would I spend $25 extra for YouTube TV instead? The unlimited DVR is nice, but most cable providers also offer some DVR functionality and tons of on-demand content. They also increasingly offer streaming to other devices. YouTube TV is only a marginally better experience in some ways, and worse in others, with a smaller channel selection. At $40, it was monetarily a wash; at $65, they need to offer something that cable isn't giving me, and at the moment they don't.
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