Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV both launched in the spring of 2017, offering customers over-the-top live television streaming options in line with established services like Sling TV and DirecTV Now.
Today, sources revealed to CNBC that Hulu with Live TV now has 450,000 paid subscribers -- "not including recent promotional customers" -- while YouTube TV has just over 300,000 as of the beginning of 2018.
Although neither service has been on the market for one full year, the sources delivering the subscriber numbers said that each company is "making some progress" in convincing users to cut the cord. However, analyst Rich Greenfield commented that any company offering a live TV streaming service may have trouble substantially growing their subscriber base "because canceling is so easy" and basic on-demand versions of Hulu and YouTube could be enough for many users.
"If you don't care about live sports, the original Hulu product is awesome," Greenfield said. "You can get all of the programming you want for more than $30 less. And YouTube is free. It actually shows you how poor the value proportion is for live TV."
[...] cable and satellite TV are stickier businesses than web-based services because they're so difficult to cancel, Greenfield said. "You can cancel these live streaming services with four clicks of a button," Greenfield said. "Have you tried canceling your cable?"
Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV are both beaten out by DirecTV Now and Sling TV, which were previously reported to have reached 1 million and more than 2 million paid subscribers, respectively. Another contender is PlayStation Vue, reported at 455,000 subscribers in Q3 2017. The subscriber numbers reported by CNBC today have not been confirmed by Hulu or YouTube, so there is still no official word regarding how accurate the data might be.
In terms of price, Hulu with Live TV starts at $39.99/month (this includes Hulu's on-demand service) and YouTube TV starts at $35/month. Hulu's service is also technically still in the beta phase, and on the FAQ section of its website Hulu states, "While we are truly proud of Hulu's live TV offering, we know that introducing any new service can come with "hiccups" from time to time, so we are first opening it up as a "Beta" to be transparent with our viewers."
Since some of these over-the-top services are still new, many of them are in the process of adding a few user-requested features following their launches. At CES, Hulu announced Live TV will get a more traditional guide interface for browsing channels, and DirecTV Now customers are waiting for its cloud DVR to launch sometime in 2018. In the first quarter of 2018, YouTube TV also plans to debut an app for the Apple TV.
Top Rated Comments
But the thing that attracts me most to these services is I can turn them on or off, or change providers anytime i want to.
For instance, I can fully cut the cord over the summer when i never watch live TV, and then sign back up in the Fall when I want to watch college football.
[doublepost=1516658047][/doublepost]Or a monthly fee to rent their equipment....Agree 100%.
Add the extra $8/month for the Channels DVR service, but well worth it in my opinion.
Yes, I do own my own broadband modem.
Yes, you have to police them and threaten to leave to get them to keep reupping the broadband + voice service discounts (fortunately, I do have alternatives if I had to actually follow through on threats). I could cut the voice fee by switching to VOIP via free Google voice + Obihai hardware, but I'm pretty happy at about $63/month for everything.
Incidentally:
* Comcast VOIP app (Xfinity Connect) is not terrible. My iDevices "ring" when I get a call via Voice. I can make (and take) calls from any such devices. I can text from any devices or even my Macs and receive texts that way too. As such, I've come to realize that since I'm in a wifi zone much of the time, I don't need an iPhone plan either- my iPad Mini with cellular is my mobile "phone" when I'm out of a wifi zone.
* AT&T's 3 months or 2GB data for $25 plan means my annual cell service bill is about $100 at most. Buds with microphone means not holding the Mini up to my ear. People on the other end can't tell I'm not using a cell phone. I like the bigger screen, built-in headphone jack and carrying one less device (and one set of headphones with no dongles) when mobile. The monthly cellular service money savings is HUGE as is the savings in NOT buying a new iPhone every year or two.
* Comcast's TV mobile app is pretty solid. Hit the road and I can watch a lot of live programming wherever I am.
* Comcast's wifi hotspots seem to be just about everywhere I go, so I generally have free access to fast wifi just about anywhere, but can fall back to AT&T cellular when it's not available.
On a "quadruple play" level (tv + broadband + voice + mobile), my $63 becomes about $70/month in total. Is this for everyone? No- none of these "cord cutter" solutions is one-size-fits-all. But this works surprisingly well for me and does keep a lot of money for these kinds of services in my pocket without feeling like I'm making ANY compromises of substance.