A multi-year distribution deal reached between Google-owned streaming platform YouTube TV and Byron Allen’s media company Allen Media Group will include carriage of the broadcaster’s national cable networks in its lower-priced, genre-based packages, The Desk has learned.
On Monday, YouTube and Allen Media announced a renewed carriage agreement that allows YouTube TV to carry The Weather Channel and streaming networks like Comedy.TV in its base programming package, which costs $83 per month. But those same channels aren’t immediately available to subscribers of YouTube TV’s newer, genre-based packages that include news and entertainment networks at a lower price.
The new plans launched earlier this year, with YouTube promising access to news, entertainment and sports networks without forcing customers to pay for channels they don’t want. But not all channels offered in the base programming package are included in the lower-priced, genre-based plans, including networks owned by Allen Media.
The Entertainment plan, which costs $55 per month, doesn’t include Comedy.TV, Justice.TV or Recipes.TV from Allen Media — channels that are available in the base programming plan. That package is also missing channels from AMC Global Media (AMC, IFC, BBC America, We TV, Sundance) and Ion from the E. W. Scripps Company.
The Entertainment package is also missing ancillary networks owned by Paramount: While MTV and BET are carried in the plan, smaller networks like MTV 2, MTV Live and BET Her are missing. All three are available in the base programming package.
A News plan, which is available as an add-on to the Sports or Entertainment packages, is also missing Allen Media-owned The Weather Channel, BBC News from AMC Global Media and two channels owned by Scripps: Court TV and Scripps News. And the Sports plan — which is the flagship offering of YouTube TV’s genre-based packages at $65 per month — doesn’t include access to Ion, which deprives subscribers of WNBA and NWSL games on those plans.
On Monday, a spokesperson for Google confirmed that the new deal with Allen Media will eventually include some of its national networks, including The Weather Channel, in “select” YouTube plans, without specifying which packages will offer the channels or when they will be added. It wasn’t clear if YouTube TV is working with Scripps, Paramount and AMC to bring its channels to lower-cost plans in the coming months.
A spokesperson for Allen Media did not returned a request for comment.
In its announcement on Monday, a YouTube TV executive said the goal of the company was to maintain a “consistent and diverse line-up for our subscribers,” and said the deal with Allen Media “helps us maintain that commitment.”
Byron Allen said the deal helps put its channels in front of “YouTube TV’s millions of subscribers,” without saying whether the agreement allows the company to offer customers on lower-priced plans access to those same channels.
Broadcast stations affiliated with major networks that are owned by Allen Media continue to be offered across all YouTube TV plans and packages; carriage of those channels are negotiated through separate agreements, often with the owners of the broadcast networks themselves. Allen Media is in the process of selling off its local TV station portfolio in order to pay down debt.
