Twice this week, YouTube TV has been in the news: Once for rolling out its new Entertainment Plus package with HBO Max, Showtime, and Stars, and again for announcing an upcoming 4K package with offline downloads and unlimited concurrent at-home streams. Related comments had us wondering how many of our readers have a subscription to live TV — whether that’s through an old-school cable provider or tied to an online streaming service like YouTube TV.
Cable subscriptions continue to decline. In fact, 2020’s lockdown seems to have accelerated that process even more. You’d assume with us all stuck at home, we would have turned to live TV as a source of stuff to watch, but last year, streaming was more popular than ever. Only a handful of our readers claimed they didn’t subscribe to any video streaming services.
Streaming live TV is a different beast, though. Netflix may run $9-18 a month, and Disney+ a mere $7, but YouTube TV starts at $65 a month, up a whole hell of a lot from its original $35 launch price. That’s a move that has pushed many of our readers away from the service. And there are plenty of alternatives, like Hulu with Live TV, Fubo TV, Sling, and even the anachronistic cable services themselves. Comcast has its Xfinity Stream, which lets you watch TV on the internet, your phone, or from a Chromecast, gratis with any TV plan. AT&T and T-Mobile both have their own live TV streaming services, too, though AT&T’s streaming situation is complicated.
There are also ways to get some limited TV access for free, like Pluto TV, but the selection can be “eh.” And that’s not even mentioning all the free trials you can rack up for other services.
So, do you have a live TV subscription — cable or otherwise? Or has your cord-cutting given the whole concept of channels and linear non-on-demand services a pass? If you subscribe to more than one (I guess it’s possible), select all that apply.
