YouTube has fired the latest salvo in the ongoing streaming TV wars, by announcing YouTube TV, a service that’ll offer live broadcast shows, cable TV and online content.
At an event in Los Angeles yesterday, YouTube revealed its new service will be a standalone app through which customers will be able to watch shows from all four of the major US networks – ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX – and around 35 cable channels.
The service is being priced at $35 a month (that’s around R458 at the current exchange rate), which offers users six accounts so that different users can watch content more tailored to their specific tastes – undoubtedly their viewing histories on YouTube will influence this.
One edge the service has is it the fact it’ll broadcast sports, which is a major reason a lot of TV service subscribers have yet to make the jump to online. Users can also record live broadcasts and store them in the cloud for later viewing.
Now, naturally, there are a lot of questions swirling around and top among them is ‘will this service be available internationally’? The short answer is: ‘not at the moment’. YouTube gave no hard release date for its new service, but said that it would roll out over the next few months to ‘major markets’.
To be frank, YouTube entering the streaming media market feels long overdue. Given the fact that the service has reported over a billion hours of viewing from users, a paid-for TV service seems like a no-brainer.
