YOUTUBE TV HAS arrived, and with it the potential to change how television works. Google-owned YouTube’s first foray into true cable-like television takes to the internet equivalent of the airwaves in select cities today: 40-plus channels of entertainment, news and sports for $35 per month, the so-called skinny bundle. So far, the service is still a little wonky. But the possibilities are there to inspire a whole new generation of viewers to actually pay for TV, and advertisers seem eager to give it a shot.
In particular, YouTube believes it can persuade a whole new audience that otherwise never considered paying for TV at all. “There are a lot of ‘cord-nevers’—millennials who never sign on for cable,” says Kelly Merryman, YouTube’s vice-president of content partnerships. “They love TV programming. They just don’t love the distribution.” That means TV, on any device, on demand. (Cable companies may offer similar-seeming options, but so far cable still remains tied to the cable box.)
YouTube brings built-in cachet as it jumps into the fray—not just in name recognition but as a platform and service used by more than one billion people. Reaching even a fraction of that audience could be a boon to marketers. But YouTube TV still has some kinks it needs to work out before it qualifies as a full-blown TV substitute.
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https://www.wired.com/2017/04/youtube-tv-review/
