Beyond Cat Videos: Youtube Will Offer Its Own Pay-TV Service

Fed up with paying for cable the traditional way? You may soon be able to subscribe to it over the internet with ... YouTube.

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The Google-owned site, known for cat videos and do-it-yourself makeup tutorials, is the latest company to offer a version of cable that looks and feels more like Netflix. Dish, Sony and AT&T already have internet cable alternatives , and Hulu has one coming soon.

None of these have yet been huge hits. YouTube is hoping its expertise in recommendations and search makes it stand out.

Dubbed YouTube TV, the new service will cost $35 a month for access to about 40 channels when it launches in the next few months, similar to rivals. But it will be initially limited to a few cities where it has deals with broadcasters. And so far, Google doesn’t appear to have deals for popular channels such as HBO, AMC and TBS.

THE ONLINE PROPOSITION

There are roughly three million fewer traditional TV households in the U.S. then there were four years ago, a decline of about 3 percent. Online alternatives such as Dish’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Sony’s PlayStation Vue had about 1.5 million customers combined in 2016.