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YouTube TV today announced it is increasing its prices across the board with the new cost coming in at $49.99 per month.
The start date for the change is today, April 10. Therefore anyone subscribing to the service today will see the new rate is already in use.
YouTube TV has also confirmed this affects existing subscribers in exactly the same way. As a result, anyone who was previously locked in to a cheaper price will be booted to the new $49.99 rate going forward.
When YouTube TV first launched it did so at only $35 per month. In early 2018, the service did see a price rise that brought the cost up to $40 per month. However, those who had signed up prior to that price increase were permitted to remain “grandfathered” into their lower $35 rate.
That’s not the case with this price increase and this likely means those subscribers who have been with the service the longest, will be hit hardest this time with their monthly YouTube TV outgoing rising by $15 per month.
The price change for existing members will show up on the next bill following May 13, 2019.
The pricing details were buried within an announcement which looked to soften the blow by advising how the service now offers more value than ever before. This is due to eight new channels being added – Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and Motor Trend.
Evidently, having more channels is a positive, however it remains to be seen whether current members will be as keen to pay more even though they might be getting more in return.
This is especially true as YouTube TV is only the latest service to up its prices. Only a couple of weeks ago DIRECTV NOW did the same although unlike YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW upped the price while actually decreasing the number of channels.
There has remained a trend in the streaming world where once one ups the cost of its plans, the others usually follow suit and that seems to be further evident here. YouTube TV is now directly on pricing par with DIRECTV NOW baseline “Plus” plan.
Of course, there are still benefits on offer that might make the appeal of YouTube TV enough to allow it to continue the momentum it enjoyed during 2018.
For example, YouTube TV still permits up to six different accounts with each account including unlimited cloud-based DVR.
Even at the channel count, while the likes of DIRECTV NOW claims to offer over 40 channels, within the new additions announced today YouTube TV has pushed its channel lineup over the 70 channel marker.
This is also likely to be good news for Hulu as its “with live TV” plan is currently the one that seems to be gaining the most momentum and at the moment it has now just become one of the cheapest of the big providers – considering Hulu’s live TV solution remains priced at $44.99 per month.
How long that remains the case is another question entirely.
If you happen to subscribe to YouTube TV through Apple then it seems you’re paying an additional ‘Apple tax’ with your new rate coming in at $54.99 per month.