Maybe we should just have one platform that has all the networks on it?
We’re just a few days away from the first official weekend of college football. (Sure, there were a few Week 0 games last weekend, but this is officially week 1).
But as everybody gears up to spend entirely too many hours sitting on the couch housing chicken wings and beer while resting our mental health on a group of 18-21 year olds, YouTube TV has decided to throw another wrench into the plans.
The streaming service announced today that due to an ongoing dispute with Fox over the renewal of their licensing agreement, subscribers may be at risk of losing access to the Fox family of networks on Wednesday – just in time for college football season. That would obviously impact the main Fox network, which is home to Big Noon Saturday and the Big Ten, but also Fox Sports and Fox News.
“To our members: In order to bring you the best in live sports, news, and entertainment, YouTube TV partners with content providers like Fox. Our agreement with Fox is nearing renewal, and we’re actively negotiating to reach a fair deal for both sides, as well as our subscribers.
Our goal is to keep Fox content, including channels like the Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News, and Fox Sports on YouTube TV. We hope to reach a deal, but we want to be transparent that if we’re unable to reach an agreement by August 27, their content may become unavailable.”
According to YouTube TV, if the dispute isn’t resolved, they’ll give subscribers a $10 credit for their trouble. Gee, thanks.
It seems like these disputes pop up every few months at this point, and in an era of streaming, customers really have no choice but to either wait around for something to get worked out and miss out on the programming they want to watch, or subscribe to another costly streaming service.
At this point, every network has their own streaming service and it seems their priority is to drive customers to their own app and get them to sign up for yet another streaming platform. NBC has Peacock for $10.99 a month, ESPN has their new streaming service for $29.99 a month, Fox has Fox One for $19.99…it goes on and on, and that’s not even counting the NFL Network or NFL Sunday Ticket (which, coincidentally, you have to buy through YouTube TV).
It’s a pain. And at this point, it has consumers screaming for an option that allows them to just get every channel in one place:
Of course with networks trying so hard to direct customers to their own apps, we’d see the same type of disputes arise with cable television services, so I don’t think that’s really going to fix the problem.
The other solution, of course, is piracy, which is on the rise thanks to the exploding number of streaming services and the increasing difficulty of getting every channel that viewers want to watch in one place.
Just last year, a report found that visits to piracy websites had increased by 36% over the past four years, no doubt due to customers getting frustrated at having to subscribe to a different service any time they wanted to watch a movie, or a show, or a sporting event, or whatever the case may be.
Ultimately the market will determine how many streaming services people are willing to subscribe to before it’s easier to just illegally pirate whatever they want to watch. But at this point, it seems like there’s a high demand for all of these different networks and streaming platforms to come together in one place and offer everything on one service.
Maybe we could call it “cable.”
