Following recent reports that Hulu is working on developing a new live TV service for launch sometime in the future, YouTube is now rumored to be working on an internet-based cable TV service of their own called ‘Unplugged’ which is said to be slated for launch next year. As Google and YouTube are already the dominant video platform on the web for recorded and live streamed content, it only seems fitting that YouTube should be trying to strike licensing deals with cable TV networks to offer a service to consumers which has both live TV and on-demand content, as other options like Sling TV and PlayStation VUE are already available in most cities nationwide.
Although YouTube already offers a subscription service with YouTube Red, which costs $9.99 a month for a single user, all this does is eliminate ads for users who are watching YouTube videos through the site or through the mobile apps. It doesn’t really offer any new types of content, whereas Unplugged would bring popular programming to the user that could contain TV shows from some of the biggest networks on television. According to the details, YouTube is already said to have been in talks with large networks like NBCUniversal, 21st Century Fox, Viacom, and CBS but have not yet reached any deals for licensing the channels from those networks.
There are reportedly ideas being passed around on how to offer content to users with multiple bundles currently being discussed, including targeted bundles which offer a collection of content and TV shows that are centered around a particular theme, like comedy, while they could also potentially offer up a package referred to as a “skinny bundle” that would contain a larger collection of content than the packages centered around a theme, and include popular cable channels from the U.S. four largest networks. With no licensing deals already in play, there is currently no set cost, but YouTube is rumored to be pushing for a monthly price that comes in under $35 a month for service access. It wasn’t mentioned if YouTube will settle on multiple price points, but it is likely if they end up offering multiple types of packages to the user.