YouTube TV raising price to $55/month for Apple-billed customers

Following Hulu, Directv NOW and other streaming services, YouTube TV announced today that it will be increasing its price to $50 per month, and $55 per month for customers billed through Apple. That’s a significant hike, considering the original YouTube TV plan cost just $35 per month.

The pricing change was tacked on to the end of this fairly big announcement:

We’ve been listening when you asked for the Discovery network brands. Today, we are excited to announce that we’re bringing eight of your favorite channels to YouTube TV: Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and MotorTrend. We’ll also be adding OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network later this year. In addition, EPIX is now available for an additional charge.

That’s all well and good, but I’m not sure it’s enough to offset the $15+ jump in price. The reason these streaming TV services are even a thing today is because they were a nice alternative to the exorbitant cable packages, but at this rate, that disparity isn’t going to be around for long.

Also noteworthy is the additional $5 surcharge for Apple-billed customers. Other apps have done this in the past to offset requisite App Store fees, and Spotify recently took Apple to task over the issue. Apple can’t be happy that developers are passing off its fees to customers. Can it?

Source: YouTube