YouTube has no deals with any of the major TV production companies, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the service.
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YouTube may soon unveil a paid TV service called UnPlugged that will offer a bundle of broadcast and cable TV channels over the Internet, according to Bloomberg News.
Those familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that YouTube has “overhauled its technical architecture” in order to support this project, which will be one of the company’s biggest priorities leading up to a planned launch as early as 2017.
The report claims YouTube is in talks with most major media companies that would be necessary to build such a service, some of which include Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, Viacom Inc., Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. and CBS Corp. For instance, you might be able to subscribe to a comedy pack, which could include Comedy Central and three or four other channels, for a smaller fee.
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We’ll keep an eye out for any further breaking news on YouTube Unplugged. “People will not be spending money on channels they don’t want to watch”. But those packages would be add-ons to the main subscription bundle that all users would have to subscribe to for starters. Hulu, owned by Fox, Disney and Comcast, also plans to expand its offering and sell an online TV service with live channels. While this all sounds likely at the moment, it is worth noting that Apple’s TV service also seemed like a sure thing for some time but these negotiations with multiple networks can be overly complicated and drawn out, so things could change. Satellite TV provider Dish Network and entertainment giant Sony already have online TV services.
