HELLO, GAMECHANGER!
I posted about this in February. At the time, no release date had been given for YouTube TV, but I suspected that Philly would be one of the launch markets seeing as though that was the case with Playstation Vue. And indeed it is. YouTube TV is live today in Philly, LA, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. It is available in a browser (Chrome only) and available for download in the iOS and Android app stores. The first month is FREE and you can cancel anytime. After that, YouTube TV is advertised as $35 per month, but for some reason my basic Philly area package came up as $39.99.
The big thing about YouTube TV, besides it being an immediate player in the cord-cutting space by the nature of it being YouTube (the interface, at first blush, is fast and clean), is that it will include the local broadcast affiliates (6 ABC, NBC 10, CBS 3, FOX 29) and CSN Philly, which means you can watch Phillies, Flyers and Sixers games while you’re in the market (there’s no TCN). It looks like you have to contact Google directly to change your preferred home market (but I suppose it might be possible for out-of-towners to do so using a relative’s address and get access to Philly programming).
I signed up and will have a full review next week, but here are some initial screenshots, which include the full channel lineup:
That just about covers it for me– the important sports networks, local affiliates, cable news, and Disney for the kid (and E! for my wife). Within seconds, I was in and watching Live From The Masters of the Golf Channel, though interestingly, the screenshot I took came up black (some sort of rights block?).
You can favorite your favorite sports teams and YouTube TV will save ALL of their games in their FREE, unlimited DVR, which stores programs for up to nine months:
A few initial observations:
I’ll have a full review and get more details on things like sports streaming next week. Leave any questions you may have in the comments.