Key Points
- YouTube TV plans a $65/month sports and news bundle with ESPN Unlimited included.
- The package undercuts the main YouTube TV plan and mirrors genre-based bundles offered by Fubo and DIRECTV.
- It isn’t clear if YouTube TV will carry regional sports channels or independent broadcast stations in its lower-priced sports package.
Google-owned streaming cable replacement YouTube TV is readying the launch of a skinny sports and news bundle that will cost $65 per month and include ESPN Unlimited for the first time.
The price point was revealed in an interview with YouTube executive Christian Oestlien published by Bloomberg over the weekend, with specific details of the plan confirmed to The Desk by a knowledgeable source early Monday morning.
According to the source, the slimmer YouTube TV package will consist of major broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, sports and sports-inclusive channels like ESPN, Fox Sports 1, TBS, TNT and NBCSN and cable news channels like Fox News and CNN at the $65 per month price point. It will also include ESPN Unlimited, the streaming plan launched by the Walt Disney Company last August that was one of the key elements of a renewed distribution agreement between Disney and YouTube three months ago.
The inclusion of news networks is not unusual: Other streaming services like DIRECTV and Fubo Sports also include a limited amount of news networks as part of a bundling arrangement with key programmers like Fox and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), which insist on carriage in order to improve the household reach of those networks.
The carriage of Fox News in particular is one of the primary reasons why YouTube TV landed on the $65 per month price point; without Fox News, the package could have been around $10 lower, according to a source who spoke with The Desk on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose otherwise-confidential parts of YouTube TV’s agreement with its programming partners.
But at $65 per month, the price is still around 22 percent lower than the current cost of YouTube TV’s one-size-fits-all package, which costs $83 per month. That signature plan will increase to over $90 per month when the new flexible programming packages are introduced in the next few weeks, with the adjustment intended to offset higher costs associated with carrying Disney channels.
Less clear is whether YouTube TV’s sports and news package will offer regional sports networks. With few exceptions (namely, NBC-owned RSNs), YouTube TV has typically avoided carriage of regional sports channels since it launched nearly a decade ago.
Over time, some premium sports programming, including National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) games, have moved off regional sports networks like FanDuel Sports Network and onto independent TV stations in major markets. YouTube TV is still working through carriage of those channels, but some sports fans may not have access to all the games from their favorite team when the less-expensive news and sports package launches in the coming weeks.
The sports and news package is just one of nearly a dozen that YouTube TV intends to offer their subscribers at differing price points that are lower than the current signature package. Other plans will include a package that offers family-friendly and kid-focused channels, another that unlocks access to movie-inclusive channels and a general entertainment package with no sports or broadcast TV channels. Those packages resemble DIRECTV’s current “MyGenre” offerings, which have been available since last year.
YouTube TV will include its current Spanish-language packages as part of those dozen-or-so offerings in its marketing materials, and plans to market its “Entertainment Plus” package as a standalone offering that doesn’t require a base subscription. Entertainment Plus includes access to HBO Max, Paramount Plus with Showtime and Starz.
