(laughing)
If I can pull this off, it'll be hysterical.
If I can pull it off.
(breathes out)
Okay, well I gotta get the line out, at least.
(laughing)
Why is that hilarious?
(record scratch)
PlayStation Vue is dead.
So, let's pour one out for all the Kyles out there.
(liquid sploshing)
(slow dramatic music)
(liquid sploshing)
Sorry, bud.
And let's all enjoy how very, very right I was
eight months in advance.
It's not so much that this is a funeral
as it is kind of putting a streaming service
in hospice care.
Now, this doesn't mean that I'm happy
to see PlayStation Vue go.
It was a perfectly fine service,
but it did have two major problems.
First of all, the name which sucked
and the lack of a differentiating factor.
So, I'll talk about that more in a few moments.
But, the news is PlayStation Vue
will stop broadcasting on January 30th,
and they're gonna stop accepting new sign ups soon
if they haven't already by the time
this video is released.
So, what happened?
Well, simultaneously it's a complex
and a very simple answer.
Either way, though, it's really the story
of what's going on with TV generally,
so here's what it boils down to.
You think TV is too expensive?
Well, yeah, so did Sony and so does everyone else.
Let's dive in.
(upbeat tech music)
Now, don't forget the subscribe
if you enjoy what we do,
but today, let's talk about the future of TV.
Today, I am going to be talking briefly
about everyone major live TV streaming service.
So Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live,
AT&T TV Now, Fubo, and Philo.
But, first, we need to understand
the demise of PlayStation Vue
and the coming demise of some others.
So, let's have a look at the general lay of the land.
Again, ultimately it boils down to this:
linear TV, scheduled, live TV,
whatever you wanna call it, is expensive to provide.
Think about how expensive it is
to run a single channel.
24 hours of content every single day.
Content you either have to create yourself or license.
That's a lot of content and that's a lot
of people's salaries to pay for,
and that's just one channel.
Then, channels aren't usually stand alone.
You have to pay for a whole bunch of them.
Like, how if Dish wants to carry NBC,
they also have to pick up MSNBC and CNBC
and USA and SYFY and E! and so on.
So, those package deals are expensive.
Just ask Sling TV, which lost 22 Fox regional
sports networks a few months ago.
Much to the chagrin of their subscribers.
So, now picture you're Sony.
The cord-cutting revolution is just starting,
and you want it on the action.
Is it any surprise that four years later
they decided that the headache, the red tape,
and the massive, massive expense
wasn't worth it for a pay TV product that,
in the end, as they implied in their press release,
was never as revolutionary as everyone hoped
it would be in the beginning.
Of course PlayStation Vue folded.
And, while we should always take press release statements
with a grain of salt, I absolutely believe them
when they say that they want PlayStation
to concentrate on its core business of gaming.
Makes total sense to me,
and as a PlayStation gamer myself,
I'm not sad about Sony putting more resources
toward that experience instead.
That's not to say there's nothing left
to be gained from pay TV.
It made sense for Sony to get out,
but there are still tens of millions
of cable and satellite subscribers in the U.S.
Not to mention the millions of cord-cutters
using other over the top services
like Sling TV, Hulu + Live, or YouTube TV and so on.
So, now the question is, what will become
of all these other providers?
Well, let's leave aside cable and satellite
for a moment and just concentrate on streaming,
and in the spirit of #CraigIsAlwaysRight,
(rock music)
I have some predictions for each of them,
and, as always, I look forward to you all
yelling at me in the comments.
(yelling)
So, let's start with AT&T TV Now,
the big fan favorite.
Honestly, AT&T's TV situation is just a giant cluster,
you know what, that would've been indelicate.
It'll actually help if we chart this out,
so let's chart this out, okay?
Thank you.
Now, AT&T owns DirecTV, the satellite service.
So, it would makes sense if they wanna
get into streaming, they'd create DirecTV Now.
The naming convention is a little bit confusing,
but whatever, we deal with it.
Well, that kind of crashed and burned,
and so they nixed that and rebranded as AT&T TV Now.
But hang on, AT&T is also phone service
and they have, on that one, they've got AT&T WatchTV.
So, that's confusing, but they also own HBO now,
and they have, well they have HBO Now and HBO Go.
And now, they're about the have HBO Max.
And then, this is actually gonna get rolled
into HBO Max, and then these are gonna go away.
AT&T WatchTV is going away.
Look, it's just a giant mess.
- -At no point in your rambling incoherent response
were you even close to anything
that could be considered a rational thought.--
But hey, bless their hearts,
they do seem to want to clean it up.
Cord Cutters News has reported that AT&T WatchTV,
like I said, is going to be shut down
in the coming months.
AT&T TV Now is also, probably, gonna go away
sometime in the next year or so.
It's going to be rolled into HBO Max eventually.
This is according to reports,
we don't have a date on that yet.
But here's my prediction,
all of this cleaning up, ultimately,
it's not gonna work.
At least as far as streaming TV goes.
Now, AT&T will still have DirecTV satellite
service for a while.
But HBO Max, which will try to take advantage
of the good will the HBO brand carries,
won't be able to sustain an expensive,
over the top live TV offering for long
and it, too, will jettison live TV
the way Sony has.
Then, there are the smaller live TV providers
like FuboTV and Philo.
Philo has the advantage of being jointly owned
by several networks, A&E, AMC,
Discovery, and Viacom.
Soon to be, maybe, CBS if that merger goes through.
So, as long as that remains the situation,
ironing out deals for those channel groups
will be relatively simple.
Now, Philo doesn't have any sports or news
to speak of and those are the most popular things
on TV right now, so they won't gain
huge amounts of subscribers.
But it could remain a decent hedge
for its owner networks as the pay TV landscape
continues to shift.
So, I think Philo will stick around,
but it will always be tiny compared
to other providers.
Fubo, on the other hand, has a ton of sports channels,
and I predict that they will double down on that.
They have one foot in, "Hey, we're sports focused"
and one foot in the "Hey, we're everything to everyone".
But they'll find, like Sony, that that
is an unsustainable model and they will refocus
just on sports, pulling in an audience
for whom sports, especially soccer,
is the primary, or maybe the only thing,
that they care about on TV.
YouTube TV will fair better
in the "everything to everyone realm",
because of its name recognition
and the mountains of cash that Google
can tolerate losing, if necessary,
in order to compete in the live TV arena.
But, even though they do make a nod
to having lots of sports on YouTube TV,
so do their competitors, outside of Philo of course.
So, YouTube TV actually lacks any additional draw,
any differentiating factor.
There's not much to set it apart
from its competitors, other than it
being a Google property.
So, YouTube TV will be around for a while,
but the amazing growth that it had
in its first year or so
will never be recaptured.
That leaves Hulu.
And here's my prediction,
in 2020, Hulu will start to pull away
from the pack and establish itself
as the undisputed king of over the top
live TV streaming.
It has the channel count,
it had the financial support,
it has the name recognition,
and it has something that its competitors lack:
a unique selling point.
Because, when you pay for live TV with Hulu,
you also get Hulu.
And with the connection now to Disney+,
it's basically game over for everybody else.
Hulu is gonna be part of a must have bundle
that will become dominant through 2020 and beyond.
Now, I'm not saying this is the outcome
that everyone should want.
Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
Maybe one of the other services is your favorite
and you would prefer it if they came out on top.
That's not my point.
Whatever our individual tastes are,
I just don't think there's any stopping Hulu + Live
from dominating the live TV cord-cutting arena
for the foreseeable future.
And now, it's time for you to let me have it.
On your way down to the comments,
make sure you like and subscribe.
But go hit those comments,
tell me why #CraigIsAlwaysRight.
(rock music)
Or why you think I'm wrong
and we'll argue in the comments.
(beep)
(thud)