YouTube TV confirmed Wednesday that it’s adding several channels from the Turner stable of networks and will raise the price of its baseline service by $5 per month for new customers starting March 13.
YouTube TV, an OTT TV service that debuted last April in a handful of markets, has added TNT, Adult Swim, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network, truTV, and Turner Classic Movies. With those additions, YouTube TV expands its programming slate while also giving sports fans access to several nationally televised NBA games, MLB postseason games, and coverage of the coming March Madness men’s college basketball tournament.
YouTube TV will also “soon” add NBA TV and MLB Network, and will also, in the coming months, enable subs to purchase two out-of-market packages – NBA League Pass and MLB.TV – via the OTT TV service, Heather Moosnick, director of content partnerships at YouTube TV, noted in this blog post.
She also confirmed that, along with the expanded lineup, YouTube TV will also be raising the price of its contract-free baseline package to $40 per month for new subs, starting March 13. Existing YouTube TV customers and those who sign up before March 13 will be able to keep the original price of $35 per month.
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YouTube TV hasn’t disclosed subscriber numbers (CNBC recently put it at about 300,000), but the service continues to expand its geographic reach.
The service, Moosnick said, will be available in the nation’s top 100 markets (about 85% of all U.S. homes) in the coming weeks, following additions that include Lexington, Dayton, Honolulu, Richmond, Mobile and Syracuse.
In addition to traditional pay TV providers, YouTube TV tangles with a mix of other OTT TV services that include Sling TV, DirecTV Now, fuboTV, Hulu, Philo and CenturyLink Stream. The Diffusion Group estimates that the current array of virtual MVPDs ended 2017 with about 5.3 million subscribers.
