MoffettNathanson’s latest “Cord Cutting Monitor” report indicated that though Google hasn’t released YouTube TV’s official first-quarter data, the analyst believes that the platform has seen the slowest period for virtual MVPD in years. YouTube TV added 75,000 subscribers during the first quarter, surpassing the 43,000 net adds reported by fuboTV, Hulu + Live TV’s 200,000, and Sling TV’s 100,000 net losses. Its growth chart for vMVPD dating back to 2017, however, has slowed since the third quarter of 2018.
From the fourth quarter of 2018 through the end of 2020, YouTube TV added approximately 3 million subscribers. In February, Google said that YouTube TV had more than 3 million paid subscribers. However, the rate of growth has declined as the U.S. vMVPD space lost a combined 241,000 subscribers, leaving it with a total of 11.75 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter.
YouTube TV’s apparent slowdown comes during a standoff with Roku, one of the biggest connected TV platforms with 53.6 million active accounts. Earlier this week during a J.P. Morgan investor conference, Roku CFO Steve Louden said his company has asked Google not to manipulate search results on Roku, to not require Roku to share personal info about customers and to “not try to require us to do certain things on the device side of things that would increase our cost basis and, hence, erode our [bill of materials] cost advantage that we have from Google products like Chromecast and Android TV.”
Google also provided an update on its ongoing business talks with Roku. The company said that, as of right now, existing YouTube TV members still have access to the app on Roku devices, but is considering other partners to secure free streaming devices in case YouTube TV members face any access issues on Roku. Earlier this month, Google announced a new feature that provides access to YouTube TV through the YouTube app on Roku and committed to an availability expansion.
Related News
