Cable TV is on the way out and YouTube TV is for Wide Open West, or WOW!, a small US broadband operator with just over half a million Internet customers and, as of March 31, 117,000 homes paying for cable television.
The migration process for residential video clients from WOW! to YouTube TV will begin this summer as WOW! discontinues the marketing and sale of its television services, including WOW! tv+ and sells YouTube TV across its entire footprint. WOW! will maintain and support its current video services as its existing base of video customers can transition from current video products of WOW! to YouTube TV.
WOW! has moved away from traditional cable since the introduction of WOW! tv+ several years ago, which is its IPTV service that uses an Android-based streaming box for video on demand, a cloud DVR, and a Google Assistant voice remote. The company also offers bundled pricing for streaming TV alternatives such as FuboTV, DirecTV streaming and, yes, YouTube TV, but this new deal would distill its video options to just market the YouTube TV subscription with no hardware included.
Google said YouTube TV surpassed 5 million subscribers last year, and a recent analyst report pegs its total at around 6.3 million now, with the Sunday Ticket deal months away from taking effect. Yet whether they get their television from a streaming service or traditional cable, the number of pay-TV subscribers in the United States has continued to decline and is around 75.5 million households, according to MoffettNathanson’s report.
