YouTube TV and NBCUniversal Agree to Contract Extension
Last updated October 1, 2021
- YouTube TV subscribers were on the verge of losing access to several major NBCU-owned channels this week.
- The two companies reached an agreement to add a short extension to their contract.
- Until they get to a new agreement, YouTube TV will get to keep carrying the NBCU channels.
YouTube and NBCU got to an arrangement after NBCUniversal said last week that over 14 channels could disappear from YouTube TV. Their initial agreement expired on Thursday, September 30. However, the two companies decided to extend their deal for a short time until reaching "an equitable agreement".
In a recent blog post, the Google-owned video platform announced that if the NBCU channels will no longer be available on YouTube TV, the monthly price would go down by $10, from $64.99 to $54.99 (while this content remains off the platform).
The new settlement was announced by NBC's spokesperson just an hour before the deadline:
The channels the platform would lose are NBC, Bravo, CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Oxygen, Syfy, Telemundo, The Olympic Channel, Universal Kids, Universo, USA Network, and regional sports networks like NBC Sports Bay Area, NBC Sports Boston, NBC Sports California, NBC Sports Chicago, NBC Sports Philadelphia, NBC Sports Washington, and SNY.
The ongoing San Francisco Giants vs. Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game would've been threatened (NBC Sports Bay Area) by the contract termination. So, this extension makes sense if we were to think about all the enraged YouTube TV subscribers that would've been left without their favorite games and with their money taken.
So this revision implies that, for a while, YouTube TV will continue to carry NBCUniversal's 14 channels, including the NBC regional sports networks, and that YouTube TV's monthly subscription cost won’t drop.
The streaming and live TV platform is on to a lot of negotiations and changes this year, starting with February, when it announced a new add-on for 4K streaming, offline viewing of 4K content, and no limit to simultaneous streams. Moreover, in May, Roku and YouTube TV accused one another of unwillingness to negotiate on good faith and fair terms, which resulted in the failure to renew the contract that underpins the presence of the YouTube TV app on the Roku platform.
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