Roku makes TVs, YouTube gets NFL Sunday Ticket
This week on TechHive: Roku’s making TVs now
Hey folks! It’s nice to be back after taking the last week off. I’m currently running around Las Vegas for the CES trade show, and will have some additional stories to share in next week’s newsletter.
For now, though, I’ve written about one of the more surprising announcements of the show: Roku plans to start making its own TVs.
Roku hasn’t gone into details about the televisions, but they’ll range in size from 24 to 75 inches, with prices from $119 to $999. The company plans to launch its first sets in the spring.
The move might seem like a head scratcher given Roku’s success with licensing its smart TV software to third-party TV builders. Bu thinking through it, Roku still has plenty of good reasons to get into the TV business itself. Read the full column on TechHive.
Weekly rewind
Google gets Sunday Ticket: Starting next season, you’ll no longer need DirecTV for NFL Sunday Ticket. Those rights will instead go to Google for the next seven years.
We don’t know pricing yet, but Google plans to offer Sunday Ticket as both a standalone subscription through YouTube and as a premium add-on for YouTube TV. Only the latter, however, will include local games, as Sunday Ticket itself is limited to out-of-market coverage. I expect that to cause some confusion next season, as folks realize they’ll still need a live TV package, an antenna, or some combination of Paramount+ and Peacock for local NFL coverage.
In the meantime, YouTube TV is speeding up development of a “Mosaic Mode” for watching multiple games at a time. YouTube also wants to open up NFL content to creators, so they can post their own highlight reels, game recaps, and possibly even live game commentary. That’s probably the most intriguing part of the deal from a tech perspective.
Although Apple had been the frontrunner for Sunday Ticket rights right up until the end, talks reportedly fell apart over pricing and packaging, with Apple wanting to bundle NFL coverage with Apple TV+ at no extra charge. The NFL apparently didn’t want that. But even with YouTube, the deal is another milestone in the slow unbundling of sports from traditional TV service.
More catch-up
- Comcast mistakenly rejects customers who are eligible for free internet.
- FuboTV drops AMC channels.
- HBO Max’s latest content removals: Parts of the Looney Tunes and Flintstones catalogs.
- Now Starz is pulling some original shows as well.
- The latest iPhone update kills DRM video support when playing through HDMI adapters.
- Evoca, an ambitious ATSC 3.0 service, shuts down. (Previous coverage here.)
Save more money
It’s a new year, and so naturally we have new codes for a free month of Paramount+. As long as you’re not a current subscriber, you can sign up on the Paramount+ website using the code SERIEA. You can also add Showtime at no extra charge. See here for detailed instructions.
For more ways to save, check out my big list of streaming deals on the Cord Cutter Weekly website.
Thanks for reading!
Apologies for the later-than-usual newsletter, as I’m operating on Pacific time this week.
As always, send me your cord cutting questions by replying to this email. My responses may be a bit delayed as I’m extra busy with CES coverage, but I’m always happy to hear from you.
Until next week,
Jared