A day before Google was scheduled to remove YouTube from the Roku appstore, Google and Roku have reached an agreement that will keep YouTube accessible on Roku devices and will return the YouTube TV app to Roku’s channel store. The deal is said to be a multi-year agreement between the two companies, but nothing else has been said about the specifics of the arrangement.
The dispute between Google and Roku started in April of this year when Roku removed the YouTube TV app from its appstore because the two companies couldn’t agree on new terms for their contract renewal. Google then escalated things by making YouTube TV accessible through the YouTube app on Roku devices to bypass Roku’s ban. Things then took a dire turn in October when Google announced that it would be removing the YouTube app from Roku’s appstore on December 9th if an agreement between the two companies was not reached.
The two companies had the following to say about the new agreement:
“We’re happy to share that we’ve reached a deal with Roku to continue distributing the YouTube and YouTube TV apps on Roku devices. This means that Roku customers will continue to have access to YouTube and that the YouTube TV app will once again be available in the Roku store for both new and existing members. We are pleased to have a partnership that benefits our mutual users.” ~Google
“Roku and Google have agreed to a multi-year extension for both YouTube and YouTube TV. This agreement represents a positive development for our shared customers, making both YouTube and YouTube TV available for all streamers on the Roku platform.” ~Roku
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Predicted this :). Both had too much to lose w/o an agreement.
As if they WOULDN’T reach an agreement…Hahaha…YT is just too popular to not have it as part of a streaming services platform.
So who gave and did Google get the search stuff they wanted.
Inquiring minds want to know!
My guess is that Roku caved because I’m guessing the percent of Roku users that use YouTube is larger than the percent of YouTube views that come from Roku. We’ll only know if Rokus get updated with new YouTube features in the near future.
I would think Roku would be ecstatic about the circumstances that would eventually require customers to purchase a new Roku device.
The recently announced Roku Streaming Stick 4K and 4K+ both support the AV1 codec. Something Google wanted and Roku pushed back on. Roku has done little to tout AV1 support, while Amazon did with the release of the 4K Max. Google definitely got something out of this.
I’m sorry, but I’ve got to point this out. Why is AFTVNEWS reporting on Roku and Youtube TV? Neither of those products are Amazon based and the article does not provide a hint on why this is pertinent for Amazon or their family of products.
I understand that if those two companies (Roku & Google) were not able to come to an agreement, it might be a sales boom for Fire TV products. But, that did not happen. Thus, there should not be an article. Every article/sale advert on this site some how ties into Amazon family of products. This did not.
I know I’m splitting hairs, but I just wanted to point that out to Elias and his Amazon Fire TV NEWS website. Elias, are you secretly a Roku user with a Youtube TV subscription? Just kidding.
I have been a fan of this site for a long time. And I still read the site from time to time even though I no longer have any Amazon products. Honestly, I just wanted to “bust some balls” with this comment. Don’t take offense. Have a great holiday season!
Haha, I know Roku news, Apple TV news, and even Android TV news doesn’t appeal to a large portion of AFTVnews readers. That’s why I try to limit that coverage. Case in point, I just published an Android TV news roundup summarizing 6 different topics, instead of posting about each thing separately. That said, I think it’s important to keep tabs on what is happening in the streaming market as a whole, even if it doesn’t affect Fire TVs directly, as it could and has circled back to affect Amazon devices later. If we get Fire TV tunnel vision and ignore what the competition is up to, it may lower our expectations of Amazon and Fire TVs. For the record, I have a Fire TV Cube, Roku Ultra, Apple TV, and Nvidia Shield TV in my living room to keep tabs on everything. No YouTube TV subscription though. ;-)