YouTube TV is expensive primarily due to the rising cost of content licensing and the value it offers through features like unlimited cloud DVR, multiple user accounts per household, and concurrent streams. The subscription price increased from $35 at launch in 2017 to $82.99 monthly by early 2025, reflecting both the escalating costs of content rights and enhancements in service such as a broad channel lineup, sports offerings, and new features like Multiview for watching multiple streams at once. The price hike, which took effect for new subscribers immediately and for existing ones by January 2025, is cited by YouTube as necessary to cover the rising expenses of securing popular channels and investing in the user experience. This makes YouTube TV comparable in price to traditional cable packages and other streaming services with extensive content libraries. Despite the high cost, YouTube TV includes benefits not always available with competitors, like unlimited DVR storage and multiple concurrent streams per household, which add to its overall value proposition but also contribute to the higher price.
