Google Fiber will no longer be offering a traditional linear TV product to its new subscribers and will instead direct them toward some live streaming TV service options.
Google Fiber announced back in December that it would begin offering YouTube TV as an option for its new subscribers and today it added FuboTV, a competing virtual MVPD, to the list of options.
In a company blog post, Google said consumers no longer need “pricey bundles” with channels they won’t watch and don’t want to get locked into services as price increases and contract disputes continue.
“As we return our focus to where we started — as a gigabit Internet company — we’re also ready to challenge the status quo, to finally come right out and say it: customers today just don’t need traditional TV,” the company wrote.
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It’s unclear what will happen to existing Google Fiber traditional pay TV subscribers but it’s possible that Fiber’s TV product never attracted a substantial subscriber base. In 2017, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett estimated that Google Fiber’s pay TV base stood at only 84,232 and that growth was hard to come by.
In the meantime, YouTube TV has grown into one of the most successful virtual MVPDs. Google announced Monday that the service now has more than 2 million paid subscribers. That likely puts YouTube TV behind Dish Network’s Sling TV – which ended the third quarter with 2.69 million subscribers – but ahead of AT&T TV Now, which finished 2019 with fewer than one million subscribers after losing another 219,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter.