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YouTube has announced that it’s raising the price of its YouTube TV subscription to $72.99 per month. The new monthly price is an $8 increase from the current $64.99 monthly fee. New members will see the new price starting today, while existing members will see the price change starting on April 18. The Google-owned company blames a rise in “content costs” for the change. To soften the blow, the company announced that it’s lowering the price of its 4K Plus add-on from $19.99 per month to $9.99 per month.
“As content costs have risen and we continue to invest in our quality of service, we’ll be adjusting our monthly cost, after 3 years, from $64.99/mo to $72.99/mo, in order to bring you the best possible TV service,” the company said in a tweet.
YouTube TV notes that this is its first price increase in three years. In July 2020, the price for YouTube TV increased from $49 to $64.99. The service debuted in 2017 at $35 per month.
“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 a tweet. “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 recently announced a landmark streaming deal with NFL Sunday Ticket, which has previously only been available through DirecTV in the U.S. The multi-year deal is reportedly worth $2 billion per season. Starting next season, the NFL Sunday Ticket will be available on two of YouTube’s subscription businesses as an add-on package on YouTube TV and standalone à la carte on YouTube Primetime Channels. Because YouTube TV is becoming the new home to NFL Sunday Ticket this fall, the price hike doesn’t come as a shock, unfortunately.
It’s worth noting that YouTube TV isn’t the only service that has recently introduced a price hike, as its competitors have done the same. Sling TV bumped up its plans by $5 last November, and FuboTV also increased rates by $5 a month in January. In addition, DirecTV Stream implemented $5 to $10 rate hikes in January, while Hulu raised the cost of the Hulu Live TV bundle in December from $64.99 per month to $69.99 per month.
The price hike comes the same week that YouTube TV launched early access to “multiview,” an option that allows viewers to watch up to four different preselected streams at the same time.
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techcrunch.com
