UPDATE 1/10: The YouTube TV live TV streaming platform will retain NBCU channels for now.
The two parties have come to a short-term arrangement to avoid the loss of more than 14 channels, at least temporarily. There’s no word on how long the extension is, but Trusted Reviews has approached both parties for further comment on the matter.
“NBCUniversal and YouTube TV have agreed to a short extension while parties continue talks,” an NBCUniversal spokesperson told Protocol last night. “NBCUniversal will not go dark on YouTube TV at midnight eastern tonight.”
That’s a positive sign for subscribers that a deal might be close and just requires a little more time to iron out the finer details. However, a little more clarity on the length of the extension would be welcome. Hopefully a lengthy deal will be revealed soon. In the short-term, it means this weekend’s Premier League and NFL Sunday Night Football action will be available.
We’ll have more news on a long-term deal if and when it becomes available.
Original story continues below…
Subscribers to the US cable-cutting streaming service YouTube TV are facing up to the looming loss of some of the platform’s most illustrious content.
An impasse with the NBCUniversal means more than a dozen top channels are set to disappear from the live TV streaming service at the end of today, Thursday September 30.
Unless there’s a last minute accord, the main NBC broadcast network, NBCSN, USA Network, Golf Channel, the Olympic Channel, Bravo, E!, SyFy, Oxygen, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo and Universo will all disappear from YouTube TV within hours. Some NBC-owned regional sports networks around the US are going too.
For sports, news and entertainment fans those are some seriously big hitters striking out. For sports fans, it means the loss of Premier League football, the NFL’s Sunday Night Football and much, much more.
Some, but not all of that, will be available via the Peacock streaming service owned by NBCU, which costs from $4.99 a month. However, in the case of the Premier League, not all games are available via that platform.
Sunday’s Liverpool vs Manchester City clash, for example, will be lost to YouTube TV subscribers even if they do subscribe to Peacock.
Perhaps realising this, and many other scenarios, will be a dealbreaker for subscribers, Google is offering subscribers a $10 discount on the $64.99 a month subscription… if an agreement can’t be reached for the channels to be retained.
In an email to customers it places the blame at the door of the NBCU. It wrote: “Our ask is that NBCU treats YouTube TV like any other distributor. In other words, for the duration of our agreement, YouTube TV seeks the same rates that services of similar size get from NBCU so we can continue offering YouTube TV to members at a competitive and fair price.”
This isn’t the first time YouTube TV has lost illustrious sports content. Subscribers were deprived of the Fox Sports regional sports networks when they rebranded to Bally Sports last year.
