re: YouTube TV goes up in price yet drops sports channels

I did the same exact thing as you. Sling plus the sports package. I prepaid for three months and they sent me an airtv which integrates OTA channels to the sling tv. I won’t give another penny to YouTube tv just off of principle. Had them for about a year starting for $40 a month and they added channels I never watched and went to 65 a month.

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It's disappointing. But right now, it's still better than every other streaming option. Their DVR alone is worth a lot to me

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I’ve had YTTV for a month now and love it. It does lack a couple channels that my wife like but it hasn’t been a deal breaker for us. We tried Hulu on the free trail and cancelled it before it was up. I agree with you that the DVR is worth it.

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I wish they would have prices by the amount of channels and you pick the channels.

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That would be a la carte, and neither the streaming services nor the cable companies can offer it without permission from the channel/content owners.

And that's the whole deal. YTTV had to raise their price $15 when they picked up the Viacom channels, because YTTV can't offer their customers, say, Comedy Central, without also giving them Nickelodeon, MTV, CMT, VH1, Paramount, and all the other Viacom channels. And YTTV probably isn't allowed to offer a "Viacom" package separately, either, because Viacom doesn't want you, the customer, to know how much it costs just to get the 1 channel you want. So they all have to go together so that it appears to be a better value, and Viacom gets a bigger chunk of your channel guide for more potential ad views.

And it doesn't do much good to switch to another service, because that 1 other channel you want is owned by a different conglomerate, and you have to buy all their garbage channels, too.

Two questions I'm wondering about YTV.

When the price hike was announced, I was convinced that football wasn't happening this year and pissed about the hike, so I went online and cancelled. 2 months later, i got a 'welcome back' email. THey are claiming I requested to suspend my account for 60 days, which I did not intend to do, I fully though I ended my subscription. But they already had charged my account and the season is going on so I figured 'whatever' and didn't dispute and will cancel after the season.

Did that happen to anyone else? I don't even remember 'suspended for 60 days' even being an option but maybe I did something incorrect, I truly don't know.

#2 Since resuming, many channels now have a 30 second 'break' where a commercial should be but isn't, just says 'commercial break' and the logo displays until show/game resumes. It never did that before. I've changed physical locations in those 60 days so maybe that has something to do with it. I truly don't know if they just have a lack of advertisers or what the deal is. ANyone else seeing experiencing this? It never happened before my 'suspension of services'.

The commercial break screen has always been there for me. I think it is the spot for local commercials. The streaming companies don't seem to put a lot of effort in to selling those slots.