Google has informed its YouTube TV customers that the monthly price of the virtual pay TV service is going up by $8, or 12%, to $72.99, effective immediately for new subscribers and on April 18 for existing ones.
“We are committed to offering a premium way for you to stream TV, but understand this new price may not work for you,” the company said in its note to customers. “We do hope YouTube TV continues to be your service of choice, but we want to give you the flexibility to cancel at any time.”
YouTube TV offers just one tier of more than 100 channels. Its previous price increase came in June 2022, when it upped its monthly fee from $50 to $64.99.
Parent company Google/Alphabet said in June of last year that YouTube TV had surpassed 5 million subscribers. Some of them undoubtedly were around for the virtual MVPD’s launch in 2017, when it was priced at just $35 a month.
The service shot up to $40 a month in February of 2018 and hasn't looked back.
Today, if you add a couple of premium SVOD services to the bill, you’re looking at monthly fees that exceed traditional linear TV.
And it's not necessarily like subscribers are getting a lot more lately. With Opening Day for baseball happening in just two weeks, the service recently stopped carrying MLB Network, for example.
Meanwhile, in a better note for consumers, the platform did lower the price of its “4K Plus” add-on package from $19.99 a month to $9.99. ■
