Cable TV is on its way and YouTube TV is in for Wide Open West, or WOW!, a smaller US broadband operator with just over half a million Internet customers and, as of March 31, 117,000 households paying for cable TV.
The migration process of WOW!’s residential video customers to YouTube TV starts this summer as WOW! stops marketing and selling its TV services, including WOW! tv+, and sells YouTube TV throughout its footprint. WOW! will retain and support its current video services as its existing video customer base may transition from WOW!’s current video products. to YouTube TV.
WOW! has moved away from traditional cable since the introduction of WOW! tv+ several years ago, which is the IPTV service that uses an Android-based streaming box for on-demand video, cloud DVR and a Google Assistant voice remote control. The company also offers bundled pricing for streaming TV alternatives like FuboTV, DirecTV streaming and, yes, YouTube TV, but this new deal would distill its video options down to just marketing the YouTube TV subscription without included hardware.
Google said YouTube TV passed 5 million subscribers last year, and a recent analyst report now put the total at around 6.3 million, with months to go before the Sunday Ticket deal kicks off. But whether they get their TV from a streaming service or traditional cable, the number of pay TV subscribers in the U.S. has continued to fall and is at about 75.5 million households, according to MoffettNathanson’s report.