It’s been a little over a year since YouTube TV dropped a whopping $15 per month rate increase on subscribers but another price hike like that isn’t coming soon.
Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, spoke with The Verge’s Nilay Patel and reassured him that no new price hikes are coming in the near term. Instead, he said YouTube TV right now is focused on building add-ons around either content verticals or new features.
“You saw that with the 4K bundle on YouTube TV. So, we’re trying to bring more choice to our users. And a lot of it is, frankly, just driven by the feedback that we hear from YouTube TV users,” he told the publication during a podcast this week.
In June, YouTube TV introduced a $19.99/month add-on that allows subscribers to watch live sports and on-demand content from FX, Discovery Networks and Tastemade in 4K. Last month, the service introduced a channel package from Cinedigm as an optional $4.99/month add-on.
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At the end of last June, YouTube TV raised its monthly price from $50 to $65 while adding eight ViacomCBS channels including Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, BET and MTV.
“We don’t take these decisions lightly and realize how hard this is for our members. That said, this new price reflects the rising cost of content and we also believe it reflects the complete value of YouTube TV, from our breadth of content to the features that are changing how we watch live TV,” the company wrote in a blog post at the time.
Mohan reiterated that the price increases for YouTube TV are due to adding channels but stressed that the additions were driven by user demand.
“Users have asked for that content to be explicitly added to the bundle as it exists on YouTube TV. So that’s what you’ve seen there,” he said.
YouTube TV’s current price point matches up with virtual MVPD competitors Hulu + Live TV and fuboTV. Less-expensive competitors like Sling TV and Philo have also recently raised prices. Sling TV this month will begin charging existing subscribers $35 per month now that a one-year price guarantee has expired. Philo earlier this summer raised its monthly rate from $20 to $25 for new subscribers, its first price increase in more than three years.