
YouTube TV will be huge. Apple must respond - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/google_youtube_tv_apple_response/
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muse900
I am sceptical about that.

I've always had the feeling that Youtube had bad management. If they weren't
the biggest library of videos online they'd probably be out of business by now
(Thats my personal opinion).

Take youtube streaming for example, it can't take over Twitch . I find its
hard to fiddle with youtube's UI changes.

I don't know really, I think we'll have to wait and see, but still $35 a month
for 40 channels that seems a hefty price.

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throwanem
$35 a month for 40 channels at launch and likely more later, that you can
watch on anything that can access YouTube? Don't underestimate the value of
convenience.

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technofiend
Depends on 30-40 channels of what -- if Showtime, HBO and Stars are in that
price then it's competitive with buying those a subscriptions from Amazon.
Thirty-fourty channels of non-premium content like reality TV shows and sports
is a non-starter for me, anyway. Reading the article which claims
"...including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, Bravo, Disney Channel, Fox News, FX,
MSNBC, Sprout and USA Network." I can definitely say at least for me it ain't
worth it.

A cheap antenna will get the broadcast networks and Bravo, Disney, Sprout, etc
don't have any compelling content for me. Far cheaper to buy one or two shows
off of Amazon if I want to see them semi-realtime, otherwise it's just fine to
wait until they are available to stream off of Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Just one nerd's opinion.

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throwanem
I don't care about that stuff either, but I know a hell of a lot of people who
do.

In particular, I suspect you overlook access to sports content, in particular
live games. That by itself matters enough to a whole lot of people to sell the
service at this price point.

~~~
technofiend
You say that, but it's my understanding that sports-only subscriptions would
be far more expensive than they are today because all cable subscribers
subsidize things like ESPN.

This is my complaint about unbundling: content creators want to charge the
same or more than their offerings cost on cable. Back in the heady days of Big
Ugly Dishes (BUDs) the providers were unbundled and far cheaper. The price
creep we've seen has been aggregators (cable companies and small dish
providers) charging a premium + markup simply because they could. Content
providers would like to decouple from cable whilst retaining the premium.

I remain skeptical of someone like Comcast ever unbundling ESPN because they'd
lose ESPN customers in droves when the real costs were exposed and most likely
they (Comcast) would simply set the new base package price as the old one.

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izacus
If anything, Netflix with its huge affordable worldwide available library is
going to be huge. Broadcast TV is rapidly dying and Google's decision to
support linear broadcast content instead of expanding YouTube to be a VoD
provider is utterly baffling.

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romanovcode
> instead of expanding YouTube to be a VoD provider is utterly baffling.

Do we really need another one?

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izacus
Good point, fragmentation of VoD services isn't a good thing.

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2T1Qka0rEiPr
It'll be interesting to see if Google can work with traditional media
companies to find a price profitable price point and offer the flexibility
which many people today seek.

It's clear to see that a company such as Netflix can clearly benefit from
moving away from these companies, as they tend to be priced highly (thus
reducing the ability to make any serious margins) and be hugely inflexible
when it comes to DRM and placing geographic and device restrictions.

Surely the deciding factory in YT TV's success will be in it's ability to wade
through this ugly maze and convince the rights owners that their future
success hinges on their ability to keep with the times...

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pjc50
> _reducing the ability to make any serious margins_

That's a rather euphemistic way of putting it; the rightsholders know they
have a monopoly on each specific item of content and don't see why any other
business should make a single penny along the way.

(Orlowski is a known pro-DRM contrarian on this subject!)

As they say, the real success is if they can make this as frictionless as
Youtube already is. Pay $35, get everything everywhere on all devices, end of
story.

~~~
2T1Qka0rEiPr
Yeh. I guess you can't knock a company for taking advantage of its monopoly
power by maximizing their own profits, but it does feel like there's a gap in
the market for someone to really innovate the (live) TV space in the way that
Netflix/Spotify have innovated.

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throwanem
It's worth keeping in mind that there is no love lost between Apple and the
Register; the latter deliberately contravenes the "reality distortion field"
at every turn, and the former permabanned them from its press and release
events years ago, a decision rumored to have originated with Jobs himself.

That said, the Register's Apple reporting, while no more directly informed
than anyone else's, often stands the test of time quite well, and Orlowski is
as close to a star reporter as anyone writing under their masthead. Thus the
choice to disregard a piece like this I think merits some hesitation, whatever
distaste one may have for the publication, which I gather is not well loved in
all quarters here.

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codewithcheese
Unlimited cloud DVR is a big win and with YouTubes infrastructure experience
you can expect it to near flawless. However, Google are terrible at marketing
most of their products and this pitch is slightly confusing for the YouTube
audience.

However, it does seem to be addressing a real need. Which is native multi
device support for live TV with the features the modern consumer expects and a
price point that Netflix only crowd won't loathe. With streaming services like
Netflix moving towards original content, I can see YouTube TV complimenting
Netflix nicely to provide the majority of content that consumers desire.

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fdim
Why does specifically Apple has to respond to this and not any other TV
providers?

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throwanem
Apple's trying to lead in the space with their Apple TV product. The trouble
is that getting actual TV content that way is difficult or impossible; news
and premium channels have fragmented and incomplete offerings, but there's no
good way of which I'm aware to get content from the broadcast networks, and
certainly no option to pay a flat fee for content from all of them.

That's a huge drawback for Apple's offering, because a whole lot of people
want to watch that stuff. If they want to keep their product relevant, they
have to address it - but they now have a huge new problem in that every Apple
TV has a YouTube app, and so do a lot of competitors in the space. They
could've had first mover advantage on this, because up to now no one has
managed it - but now it seems YouTube has, which leaves them playing catch-up.

~~~
madeofpalk
???

Apple doesn't give out Apple TVs for free. The beauty of owning the hardware
and platform like Apple does is that they still make money from other peoples
services.

Now, whether they have a compelling enough TV hardware + OS/software for
people to buy and watch Youtube TV over... that's another question. But I
think that question exists regardless of whether Apple makes a linear
broadcast TV streaming service or not.

~~~
throwanem
That's the point I'm making - Apple isn't really out to sell YouTube boxes,
and never has been. If that's all they can do, they may as well exit the
space, because there are cheaper, better-spec'd YouTube boxes which will eat
so much of their lunch that it'll be uneconomical to continue manufacture and
marketing.

~~~
madeofpalk
I disagree.

The "reports" earlier, when Twitter was bidding for NFL (or NRL? I'm not
American or into sport) Apple considered a bid but ultimately decided not to
because they realised that whoever got the rights would just still stream it
on Apple TV regardless.

I definitely acknowledge that Apple TV at the moment is Apple's compromise of
not being able to put a better _service_ out there, but I still think they're
very happy selling people their hardware for other people To make software
services over the top.

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mikhailt
People need to stop telling Apple what to do, they are not going to listen.
They got to where they are by themselves, and they are either going to dig a
hole or do something better by themselves.

As for Google, good, that doesn't harm Apple. It means we can still access it
on Apple platforms as Google still develop their services on both Android and
iOS.

If not, there is still Vue, Sling, and other similar ones.

Apple might benefit from an open-minded media content providers seeing the
success of the streaming services and they might ease up on the deals that
Apple want.

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throwanem
How can Apple respond? They already have all the incentive they need to
partner with content providers, and have for quite a long time; the
opportunity to pay a flat rate for access to TV content linked to Apple ID, so
available on any Apple device and only Apple devices, would have been a very
strong differentiator for Apple's products, especially mobile.

But they haven't made it happen - and now they've probably lost that chance
for good, if indeed they ever had it.

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madeofpalk
The story goes is that they've been trying for a _very long time_ , but
they're unable to get the content owners (TV channels and movie studios)
onboard.

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throwaway2016a
I have Playstation Vue, which contrary to the name does not require you to
have a Playstation (although I do). It also works on Apple TV, mobile, and PC.

It has local stations and a cloud DVR as well as Showtime (for Homeland and
Billions) and HBO (for Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Last Week tonight).

The price is a little high but overall I've been extremely happy with it. When
I saw YouTube's new service my first thought was that it was awful in
comparison.

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ebbv
I see no reason to believe YouTube TV is going to be huge. $35/mo isn't a
great bargain. Hulu used to offer a lot of the same channels for only $8/mo
and while successful it wasn't "huge". Hulu has been dying since Comcast got
ownership, but I see no reason to believe something priced at over 3x what
Hulu charged for the same thing is going to be "huge".

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TYPE_FASTER
Tried Sling.tv, which starts at $25 for some set of broadcast channels. The
value wasn't there for me. Netflix + Prime is cheaper and has more content.

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kegan
Remember when netbook will be huge, and Apple must respond?

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throwanem
It was, and they released the MacBook Air and then the iPad. Then tablets
gutted the netbook market, and thanks to their foresight, they were well
positioned to ride that wave. They haven't done the same with TV.

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madeofpalk
To be completely fair, I don't think anyone really has 'solved' TV yet.

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amelius
Apple can easily become large enough by simply making it easier for iPhone
users to upload camera-captured content to Apple's own silo than to upload
content to youtube.

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throwanem
Which people won't do, because YouTube is where the viewers already are, and
also because Apple has what might charitably be called a checkered history
with its first-party cloud services.

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diimdeep
TV must die.

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powera
Nope.

