If there ever was any doubt which live streaming service was dominating in the U.S., it ends now. YouTube TV has more than 8 million subscribers, according to a blog post penned by CEO Neal Mohan. That’s up from the 5 million subscribers the service announced in July 2022.
By comparison, Hulu With Live TV — the second-biggest service — reported 4.6 million subscribers as of September 30, 2023, which marked the end of parent company Disney’s fiscal year. YouTube’s parent company, Google/Alphabet, doesn’t report subscription numbers with any real sort of fidelity. “More than 8 million” is all we’re going to get. The new numbers also mean that YouTube TV has about four times as many subscribers as the third-highest service, which is Sling TV, at just over 2 million.
Also bolstering the numbers has been the addition of NFL Sunday Ticket, which in 2023 made the leap from the satellite-based DirecTV to YouTube TV, as well as YouTube Primetime Channels on the traditional YouTube app. Execs have said in a couple of earnings calls that NFL Sunday Ticket has directly led to an increase in subscribers. YouTube TV also has a multiview feature, letting you watch multiple games simultaneously. (It also works for news and weather in addition to sports.)
YouTube TV is available on every major streaming platform, from Google TV and Android TV to Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV. It’s also available on smartphones, tablets, and web browsers.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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