And go on and smash that notification bell to get updates whenever we put out a new video. I mean 65 bucks a month? Think about it. You add that to your internet bill and you’re probably sitting around 140 bucks a month now. If you have a normal cable internet bill or whatever between 50 and 70 bucks a month, you’re probably sitting between 120 and 140 if you’re subscribed to that plus YouTube TV. Congratulations. You’ve all just rediscovered your cable TV bundles. Here we are again, right? Plus, you add onto that whatever on-demand services you’ve got—Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+—there’s another $5, $7, $15 a month that you’re paying for other on-demand services. And yeah, the pricing is getting a little bit out of hand because frankly live TV, it’s expensive.
Read our complete review of YouTube TV. There will be others added later. I doubt that they will raise the price again when they add the other channels. I think there’s six more that they’re going to throw in there as well. But still, honestly, it’s a few new channels and some big names. To be clear, these are big name channels but whether it’s worth 15 bucks, I’m not sure. Still, YouTube TV, now that they’ve got the Viacom channels and they have everything else, it seems to be a pretty well-rounded service. They still have all the Fox Sports channels and the ESPN channels, plus Fox and ABC. Now they have ViacomCBS. Now, if you go to YouTube TV’s pricing comparison page right there on their front page, they are happy to note that the $55 price at Hulu Live does not include the DVR fee, which is 10 bucks. It takes it right up to $65 a month, just like YouTube TV. Fair enough. But at least with Hulu, I have the option to forego the DVR. Now, most people I think will want the DVR, but having the option to not have it and bring that price down is always nice. YouTube TV does not give you that option. Read our complete review of Hulu + Live TV. Anyway, the question here is whether people will be willing to forego a few channels to keep the price low. Because that’s the selling point for Sling. If you don’t care about Fox Sports Networks or if you don’t need the ESPN stuff, then you can choose the orange or the blue and keep that price down. But is the price gap going to be enough to push people back to the OG live streaming service? I’m not sure, but Sling TV could possibly see a resurgence with the other services continually raising their prices because Hulu raised their prices a little while ago. Now YouTube TV has done it. Read our complete review of Sling TV. Is all of this coming as a shock? It shouldn’t. I mean, I’ve been talking about this for a while. These price raises are inevitable. As the services add more and more channels, people demand that they get HGTV or ESPN or whatever other channel they want, the services have to bring these channels on, and it raises the price more and more and more. Read our complete review of fuboTV. It’s going to take a few more years. This isn’t going to happen next week, but the day is getting closer and closer when live TV will be a thing of the past except for sports. And even then, I think it will start to lose a lot of its momentum. One day, some kid is going to ask his parents what it was like to have to just wait until Thursday nights to watch their favorite show, to watch Seinfeld or whatever. “You just had to wait until every Thursday to watch your show?” It’s going to be a relic of the past. The only question in my mind is whether live TV is going to have an epic meltdown and disappear overnight, or whether it will slowly and quietly fade away. Personally, my money is on fading away slowly, but I guess we’ll see. The question here is if YouTube TV is still worth it at 65 bucks a month? My answer, nope. Okay for me, it wasn’t worth it at 50 bucks, but I’m not really a live-TV watcher. But certainly at 65 bucks a month, that is a tough pill to swallow. But maybe you are a live-TV devotee. Maybe you still watch a lot of that and maybe the awesome DVR at YouTube TV is enough to keep it going in your mind. If so, let us know!
