On Feb. 28, Google revealed the newest addition to its expanding service: YouTube TV, a digital streaming service that is offered at $35 a month and will offer 40 channels at launch. This service is expected to release in the upcoming months in major cities although no plans have been revealed to release it internationally.

YouTube TV will include premium and cable networks available to stream across multiple platforms.  Due to this, the streaming service is deemed a “cable-killer” – just like PlayStation Vue and DirecTV Now – because it renders cable companies obsolete by offering a variety of channels with more perks offered.  

With the surplus of content uploaded to YouTube by a variety of users at a constant rate, avid user of the service, Ferlin Gatlin, 10th, believes that this won’t cause any major change to the company.

“I think it’s not that good of an idea [YouTube TV] because you can get cable so many other places now that it’s kinda of adding more to nothing,” Gatlin stated.

This will be the newest addition to YouTube’s service.  In 2016, Google announced ‘YouTube Red’; an add-on to YouTube that allows subscribers to watch unlimited videos with no ads, offline viewing, and subscriber-only original content created by some of the biggest influencers like VSauce, Buzzfeed, Smosh, Grace Helbig, and Lilly Singh.

Creator of short films, Jonathan Calderon, 11th, weighs in on the difference between the two services and whether they should be joined together.

“I don’t think YouTube Red and YouTube TV should combine or join ‘cause I think the purpose of YouTube is just creating what you want without any boundaries or what regular tv stations have like ‘oh yeah you can’t say this, you can’t say that’.” Calderon said.  “There are some limitations but for the most part, you can create anything you want which is why so many people go to YouTube; to create and watch these things you wouldn’t normally watch on tv and you know, YouTube Red is sort of like that, it is a lot more creative, you can do anything you want.”

YouTube Red changed how some influencers use and see this entertainment medium by offering different perks.  With YouTube TV, the changes are yet to be known for content creators.  Producing sketch videos for two years, David Beckham, 12th, weighs in on how this new service will change the way consumers look at cable tv.  

“It’s definitely [YouTube TV] going to change the way we see different content now as we’ve been seeing old mediums not becoming such a big thing anymore, it’s transferring to mediums such as Netflix and YouTube and all these other things,” Beckham said.  “Everything is going digital now so I feel like it’s going to let us stay home more and have that comfort feeling rather than going to the movie theaters and paying all that money but now you get it cheaper so it’s kinda cool.”

 
YouTube TV is set to include channels such as The CW, Fox, ABC, FX, E!, National Geographic, and ESPN although Showtime and Fox Soccer Plus can be added for an additional fee.  The $35 membership will include unlimited cloud DVR, YouTube Red original content, streaming across different devices, and six accounts for different people.  Rumors of Google announcing a cable-streaming service circulated for a while in 2016 but no confirmation was provided until now.