Nowadays, People spend more time watching tv shows and movies at home and there are a lot of TV streaming providers available in the market. They need to be competitive to stay on the business and some of the TV providers are in partner with internet providers offering bundle packages. TV companies are getting wiser and wiser in terms of their strategies to grow their subscribers. YouTube TV is one of them.
There has been some talk about YouTube banning television channels. Google decided to accept the challenge and created a way for viewers to still watch television on Roku. The contract between the three companies needed to be renewed, which is where the decisions to make a way around YouTube came about. The contract would have featured YouTube TV as Google’s replacement and would be available on Roku. Since the companies couldn’t agree on the terms that were in the contract, YouTube was removed from Roku. This meant that customers would not be able to watch TV streaming shows or movies featured on YouTube or listen to music. Customers who had the app installed could still use it, but new customers wouldn’t be able to enjoy YouTube.
Hidden Apps
Google made the decision to try something a bit sneaky so that customers could still stream TV shows and movies or whatever they wanted to watch on YouTube. The company hid YouTube TV in the YouTube app since they are technically two different things. Customers might not be able to use the YouTube TV app, but YouTube itself is still available on Roku until December. Google made use of the extra time and put the YouTube TV app inside the plain YouTube app so that customers wouldn’t have to change services. This might sound a bit complicated, but it’s something that’s done quite often. Customers can find the app on the side of the screen when they use Roku. The music feature offered by YouTube operates in a similar fashion as one app is hidden inside of another.
Coming to an Agreement
Talks are ongoing between Google and Roku as they want to come to some kind of agreement instead of Google hiding an app. It’s possible that Google could take a step in another direction in the future if Roku doesn’t make any changes or doesn’t accept the offers that are being made by Google. The company could pull services altogether from Roku and partner with another company so that new and old customers have access to YouTube TV and other apps that could be taken away. Google has already made an offer to leave the contract alone, but Roku wants a few more details put into the contract. It’s believed that Google wants to take choices away from customers, which is why Roku doesn’t want to sign an agreement quite yet. Roku doesn’t want Google to try to manipulate the choices that customers have, which is one of the reasons why a contract hasn’t been signed. Google also wants access to some of the data that Roku has available that other companies don’t have access to at the moment. Roku believes that the information that it has should be kept private and doesn’t like that Google is trying to bully the company into providing details.
Issues With the Companies
The issues that have kept an agreement between Roku and Google are the same as those that have been at the forefront in recent years. Google doesn’t believe that the company has made any demands, and Roku has made claims that Google has been too pushy with wanting information and trying to get customers to focus on certain apps instead of letting customers choose what they want to watch. A change that Google wants is for Roku to ensure that all types of equipment meet the requirements for watching YouTube and other apps that are available.