On April 5, 2017, YouTube launched YouTube TV in five major U.S. metro areas: New York, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and Philadelphia. It was a separate service built around live television, not a new tab for ordinary YouTube uploads.
The launch pitch was familiar to anyone frustrated by cable. YouTube TV promised live news, sports, and shows across devices, with no long-term commitment. The starting price was $35 per month, and the service included more than 50 networks in its initial package and planned additions.
The service also treated recording differently from a traditional box under the television. Each member could have a personal account and cloud DVR with no storage limits, while a household could watch up to three streams at the same time.
That design made the product feel like a bridge between television and software. The channels and live events came from the TV world, but the controls—profiles, recommendations, cloud recording, and watching on a phone—came from the web.
YouTube TV’s original launch was limited to selected U.S. markets, so it was not a worldwide replacement for cable overnight. Its importance was conceptual: the YouTube brand could now mean not only a library of uploaded videos, but also a live channel bundle that followed the viewer.