More than 100 PBS stations are now available in YouTube TV

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

More than 100 PBS member stations have gone live on YouTube TV starting Dec. 17, 2019.

• This means that more than 75% of U.S. households would be eligible to receive the local PBS station via the streaming TV service.
• The deal includes both PBS and PBS Kids feeds as well as on demand programming.
• Additional member stations are expected to come on board in 2020.
• Each PBS station is owned and operated by a local entity — and are not “affiliates” in the technical sense.
• Member stations can each make their own programming and business decisions, including whether to stream content or not.
• This means that YouTube likely had to negotiate deals with each station.
• Because of this, it likely couldn’t do “sweeping” licensing deals with NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox’s owned station groups — where a single agreement could cover the network affiliates in major markets that would make programming available to large chunks of people at once.
• The move represents PBS’s first move into live streaming.