YTTV dropped ESPN

If you get the normal satellite version of DTV, for the choice package you pay $70 a year for the first year, then it gets jacked up an additional $40-50 that second year of the contract. After the contract expires I have always been able to get my price down to the $70-80 range and keep it there. You'll likely have to pay more to stream everything you get at that price, which outside of one year, makes it the cheapest to me.
Same here. I've been with them a decade, and they've always been reasonable with me about lowering my bill. That said, I think that sooner rather than later, the satellite dish is only going to be an option in remote regions. Everyone else is going to be transitioned to the DirecTV Streaming service.
 

You get far more sports on YTTV than cable? YTTV has no Bally's.....which eliminates the Twins/Timberwolves/Wild almost entirely. They also carry some Gophers hockey, right? There's now zero ESPN....meaning goodbye bowl season (for the most part). Xfinity carries the SEC Network. No ACC Network right now....which is basically insignificant.
As I mentioned before I rarely watch professional sports excepting the occasional NFL game so I have no desire to pay for Bally..
I expect ESPN will be back on YTTV before any FB bowls that I care to watch will be on.
If not, I will use a free week or so on a streaming channel that does have them.
Cable was almost twice as expensive as YTTV to match YTTV's sports apps and we can use it at our lake cabin replacing expensive satellite Directv.
I do not have stock in Alphabet. YTTV fulfilled our needs better than cable.
If you like cable, fine.
 

Added all NCAA football to the unlimited dvr so I could watch Beavs vs Utah State and was wondering why didn’t any bowl games record today.
I did get emails from them but didn’t make the Disney to ESPN connection. Bummer!
 

Learned this while watching the Timberwolves game vs the Lakers.... all the sudden said I could no longer watch, infuriating.
The ONLY way I could see them was on ESPN or the like with YTTV's dispute with Ballys....

I guess I'm switching to Fubo
 

I know I probably pay too much (I have Spectrum), but I like having one remote control to watch everything I need. My sons keep saying "Dad you overpay to watch TV!" But when I go to their houses I have to sift through several remotes and get detailed instructions on what to do just to watch a football game. Then I'll call them and ask "Hey did you watch the Wild game last night?" and they'll tell me no, because their provider dropped FSN/Bally. I pay my inflated Spectrum bill monthly and don't worry about a thing. Call me old and unwilling to change! I pay for the convenience. :)
I have a roku stick and hulu live, my cost is about $100 under what I had with cable and the small simple roku remote runs everything. Power and volume on TV and switches between hulu and prime and hbomax. I finally was driven to it after waiting a year for my cable to quit fighting with NBC and not carry it. Second year where I was going to miss an NBC NFL playoff game was the clincher. I tried good antenna but switching out of cable back to antenna was a pain and NBC signal was weak.
 


ESPN now showing me this banner ad.

I don't think the YTTV and Disney thing will end soon. This is going to be the first major standoff in the "I'm taking my ball and going home" new world of media distribution battles.

We're just getting started. And it's going to be very anti-consumer before it gets better.

I've spent a large part of my career in this space and I see where it's heading.

Screen Shot 2021-12-19 at 10.54.35 AM.png
 

ESPN now showing me this banner ad.

I don't think the YTTV and Disney thing will end soon. This is going to be the first major standoff in the "I'm taking my ball and going home" new world of media distribution battles.

We're just getting started. And it's going to be very anti-consumer before it gets better.

I've spent a large part of my career in this space and I see where it's heading.

View attachment 16026
Seems like every media group (Disney, NBC, Discovery, etc) is fragmenting off with their own streaming services and the only way to stream those shows will be to subscribe to all the different services. So to have what I have with cable tv I'd need 6 different streaming services.
 

Seems like every media group (Disney, NBC, Discovery, etc) is fragmenting off with their own streaming services and the only way to stream those shows will be to subscribe to all the different services. So to have what I have with cable tv I'd need 6 different streaming services.
yeah. and that's wildly inefficient from a user interface perspective. content is then going to be organized along corporate structure lines, which is also wildly inefficient and anti-consumer.

What if someone came along and created an experience that unified all of these disparate streaming media brands? Ya know, like a cable company? That company will end up being Amazon, Apple, or Google and we will end up back where we started, but with more control in the hands of the biggest companies on Earth.

The Google part is why Disney is going to make a stand here against YouTube TV. Because YTTV could credibly be that streaming platform to rule them all, and that scares The Mouse.

My sports media predictions in various threads are far better informed than my football takes.
 
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yeah. and that's wildly inefficient from a user interface perspective. content is then going to be organized along corporate structure lines, which is also wildly inefficient and anti-consumer.

What if someone came along and created an experience that unified all of these disparate streaming media brands? Ya know, like a cable company? That company will end up being Amazon, Apple, or Google and we will end up back where we started, but with more control in the hands of the biggest companies on Earth.

The Google part is why Disney is going to make a stand here against YouTube TV. Because YTTV could credibly be that streaming platform to rule them all, and that scares The Mouse.

My sports media predictions in various threads are far better informed than my football takes.

The antiestablishment part of me felt ashamed to be a relatively early YTTV customer, akin to funding the Empire's Death Star in Star Wars or the Borg Cube; but it was sooo good compared to the competition at the time a few years ago. Others seem to be catching up. I might just stick with FuboTV or some other service for a while.
 



The antiestablishment part of me felt ashamed to be a relatively early YTTV customer, akin to funding the Empire's Death Star in Star Wars or the Borg Cube; but it was sooo good compared to the competition at the time a few years ago. Others seem to be catching up. I might just stick with FuboTV or some other service for a while.

This may have been mentioned but Disney owns a majority stake in Hulu (and ABC, ESPN, SEC, ACC, FX) and coincidentally…HULU live is raising their prices on Dec 21, 4 days after cutting out Google/YTTV.

Their new price for will be $70.00 + $10 if you want DVR functionality with ability to fast forward through commercials (200 hours). That’s generous of them. YYTV was $65 for a superior technical product and unlimited DVR, similar channel offerings.

It’ss hard to feel sad for either party. Googles ability to monetize our identities, behavior, locations, surfing and shopping behaviors probably allows them to subsidize cost. Disney has been a shameless, ruthless, cynical profiteer for decades that preys on the sensibilities of parents and nostalgia (and is responsible for Star Wars Episodes 7,8,9).

Fubo in its crosshairs next? Will ESPN, SEC, ACC eventually only be available through HULU, or perhaps competitors at a dear cost? I don’t know. At some point these companies will have grown too large to promote a fair marketplace.

NOTE: for those that have used their FUBO trial for the game earlier this year Hulu live also offers a 1 week trial.
 

I had Hulu LiveTV with DVR and no commercials for a year...I will never go back to that. First of all "no commercials" is a lie and there are plenty of shows and networks that you can't fast forward through them either making the added cost stupid. The DVR is mediocre and the quality of the stream is blah. Plus they raised the price like 3 times the year I had it. I went back to Xfinity and havent missed Hulu. I will pay a bit more for vastly superior quality. Di$ney will only make it worse as this goes...they will tank it like they have ESPN.
 

I had Hulu LiveTV with DVR and no commercials for a year...I will never go back to that. First of all "no commercials" is a lie and there are plenty of shows and networks that you can't fast forward through them either making the added cost stupid. The DVR is mediocre and the quality of the stream is blah. Plus they raised the price like 3 times the year I had it. I went back to Xfinity and havent missed Hulu. I will pay a bit more for vastly superior quality. Di$ney will only make it worse as this goes...they will tank it like they have ESPN.

ESPN commands a large subscriber cost for cable TV users. I don't see Disney pulling it from cable providers anytime soon.
 

Thanks for all the responses and ideas. What an F'nnnn circle jerk this whole media circus is. Just when you think you've got it figured out and working the way you want, some overpaid CLOWN ceo "fixes" it.

The obsession with "getting a bigger slice of the money pie" has ruined and made major league pro sports like NBA, MLB and NFL almost unwatchable and major college sports are in its crosshairs. In <10 years there will not be much differentiation.

Anyway, enough ranting...

I guess I am going to look into using Xfinity, since they are my internet provider anyway....

Good luck to everyone and Merry Christmas!
 



The Google part is why Disney is going to make a stand here against YouTube TV. Because YTTV could credibly be that streaming platform to rule them all, and that scares The Mouse.
Yes, YTTV is a subsidiary of Google and the Mouse is scared. YTTV easily has the best algorithm for streaming sports.
 

Thanks for all the responses and ideas. What an F'nnnn circle jerk this whole media circus is. Just when you think you've got it figured out and working the way you want, some overpaid CLOWN ceo "fixes" it.

The obsession with "getting a bigger slice of the money pie" has ruined and made major league pro sports like NBA, MLB and NFL almost unwatchable and major college sports are in its crosshairs. In <10 years there will not be much differentiation.

Anyway, enough ranting...

I guess I am going to look into using Xfinity, since they are my internet provider anyway....

Good luck to everyone and Merry Christmas!
Capitalism, left to its own devices, will erode everything that came before in search of the next dollar. The outcomes are not necessarily good or desired.

Sports has become much less consumer and family friendly in the last 10 years. It won't get better.
 

Capitalism, left to its own devices, will erode everything that came before in search of the next dollar. The outcomes are not necessarily good or desired.

Sports has become much less consumer and family friendly in the last 10 years. It won't get better.
Watching sports on television couldn't have been more consumer and family friendly than it was the last few years. It's changing for the worse, but you could pretty much get every single sporting event on the planet for cheaper than you could get a handful of them 10 years ago.

No need to worry through, some entrepreneurial capitalist will find some business model to monetize this hole in the market and we'll all pivot to that (until that gets too expensive and rinse/repeat).
 

I've been researching options just for fun.

as of now, if you want ESPN, BTN and Bally Sports North, it looks like the only real option other than cable is DirectTV Stream.

BSN is not available on Fubo, as far as I can tell.
 

I've been researching options just for fun.

as of now, if you want ESPN, BTN and Bally Sports North, it looks like the only real option other than cable is DirectTV Stream.

BSN is not available on Fubo, as far as I can tell.
I think you're correct but, living out of state, I don't really care about Bally as I don't really care about the local teams here. Would be different if I was in Minnesota still and wanted to watch the Twins.
 

breaking news - as of 2:00pm on Sunday, reports indicate that a deal has been reached for ABC and ESPN channels to return to YouTube TV. haven't seen anything yet about possible changes in the cost of the service.
 


The antiestablishment part of me felt ashamed to be a relatively early YTTV customer, akin to funding the Empire's Death Star in Star Wars or the Borg Cube; but it was sooo good compared to the competition at the time a few years ago. Others seem to be catching up. I might just stick with FuboTV or some other service for a while.
Heartily agree funding a Borg cube is not in any sports fan's interests!

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Great news!! Not on my set yet but assume by tomorrow morning. In time for Vikes game anyway.
 

Good to see the deal has been made.
I got the 7 day trial for Hulu, but it was obvious their algorithm struggled to keep clarity for active sporting events as the pixelation would blur trying to keep up. YTTV has the sharpest image I have found (I started with Sling many years back).
 

awesome news. Youtube TV is a really good service and happy to have the ESPN family back in time for Vikings MNF and bowl season!
 

Good to see the deal has been made.
I got the 7 day trial for Hulu, but it was obvious their algorithm struggled to keep clarity for active sporting events as the pixelation would blur trying to keep up. YTTV has the sharpest image I have found (I started with Sling many years back).
Did the same. Hulu isn’t very good. YTTV is better, would be great if they could get Bally back.
 


Nice job negotiating, YTTV!
 

I'm staying away from YTTV for a while. I was a loyal customer. F'ck Google. There will be some experimentation the next few months including considering the traditional cable and/or satellite providers again. FuboTV for at least a month. My wife will probably convince me to return eventually. She likes YTTV.

In the past, I've switched between Comcast and DirecTV multiple times; always spurred on by the existing provider pissing me off for one reason or another. Google is no different. Time to experiment elsewhere.
 

If you can make Disney blink you must have a huge set of......
 




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