Not just cost-cutting driving the cord-cutting revolution
Google’s YouTube on Tuesday unveiled a web-TV service that will offer a package of over 40 broadcast and cable channels for $35 a month, making the tech giant the latest entrant in a race to win over millions of consumers who are shifting away from traditional TV.The new service, dubbed YouTube TV, is set to launch in the next few months. It will have all the major broadcasters, including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, as well as several dozen well-known cable channels, such as ESPN, FX, USA, MSNBC and Fox News.
Source: Google’s YouTube to Launch $35-a-Month Web-TV Service – WSJ
The launch of YouTube TV is about as obvious as when Starbucks launched coffee ice cream. People loved Starbucks. They love ice cream. Coffee drinkers like coffee ice cream. Boom, Starbucks Mocha Java Chip ice cream was born and America’s waistline continued to expand just like the coffee.
YouTube’ dominance of the online video world is unmatched, and so cutting the deals with the networks to launch live YouTube TV makes sense. What jumped out to us, however, was this one line:
There’s no question millennials love great TV content,” said YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki. “But what we’ve seen is they don’t want to watch it in the traditional setting.”
It reflects the realities of today’s Connected Society in that the ability to always access the web from anywhere, anytime has led to place-shifting of traditional content consumption. “Thursday Must See TV” is long gone, as is the family gathering around the TV to all watch a big game. Sure there are services that have been around that let you access your cable content from anywhere, but that means double payment to both the service provider and the cable company.
Of course, the biggest question is if Alphabet can cut this deal, what’s Apple’s problem been for so many years?
