The fastest growing major pay TV service in America the past few years, YouTube TV, is making some pricing and packaging moves to keep it that way.
The Alphabet-owned virtual MVPD said in a blog post earlier this week that it will expand beyond its 100+ channel, $82.99-a-month offering to introduce 10 less expensive, smaller genre-based programming packages, available starting sometime in 2026.
In his post, YouTube subscriptions chief Christian Oestlien was light on details, providing no pricing information, for instance. But he did lay out aspects of the “YouTube TV Sports Plan,” which will include FS1, NBC Sports Network, all of the ESPN linear networks and ESPN Unlimited. Subscribers can also add NFL Sunday Ticket and RedZone to this package.
YouTube TV is only the latest pay TV operator to take advantages of flexibilities after a separate court battle last year, when Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery — long resistant to offer their content, namely sports, to distributors under terms that would allow for skinnier, more flexible, genre-based networks packaging — tried to launch a sports-focused pay TV package of their own, the ill-fated Venu Sports.
Their Venu Sports joint venture ended up with a preliminary federal court injunction slapped upon it. And soon after the antitrust lawsuit brought on by virtual MVPD Fubo was settled and the JV dissolved, more flexible options from pay TV operators began to appear. DirecTV was first to enter the market with “Genre Packs”, skinnier bundles themed around sports, entertainment and news.
Since then, other operators have started to exploit the more lenient programmer approach to skinny bundles post-Venu.
Comcast last week upped the price of a skinnier, sports and news-themed bundle, which had debuted in January shortly after DirecTV’s genre packages, as part of overall strategy of simplifying its service pricing nationally, including limiting hidden fees. And over the summer vMVPD Fubo launched skinnier sports pay TV lineup that executives have said is seeing early positive traction.
For its part, YouTube TV increased prices back in January by $10 a month, 13.7% overall, to $82.99, which may have had an impact on subscriber results this year.
Per estimates from MoffettNathanson, YouTube TV lost a half-million subscribers in the first quarter. And the vMVPD’s estimated customer growth in the usually seasonally strong Q3 of 750,000 was lower than the same period of 2024, when 1 million subscribers were added.
“That price increase no doubt exacerbated the loss in Q1 … and may have depressed the Q3 rebound, as well,” wrote equity analyst Michael Nathanson of YouTube TV.
YouTube TV is also coming off recent carriage renewals with NBCUniversal and Disney, the last one being an unusually bruising affair that involved a two-week blackout. YouTube reportedly achieved key negotiating goals, including the right to “ingest” Disney content, but it also likely agreed to pay for specified rate increases on networks.