YouTube TV

YouTube TV to end misleading ‘$600 less than cable’ ad campaign after price hikes

Ben Schoon | Oct 12 2023 - 6:50 am PT

Google was recently accused of running a misleading ad campaign for YouTube TV that positioned the service as being hundreds of dollars cheaper than cable, but the company has now agreed to end the campaign.

Back in August, the National Advertising Division (a part of the BBB National Programs which aims to keep advertising truthful) accused Google of misleading customers with an ongoing ad campaign where the company claims that YouTube TV was, over the course of a year, $600 less than the cost of cable.

In our own analysis of Google’s claim, where the company is basing the figure on customers having at least two set-top boxes from a cable provider, we found that $600 wasn’t too far off the mark. However, changes from other providers such as wider availability of internet-based live TV streaming at no extra cost did make Google’s claim hard to back up, especially given YouTube TV’s much higher price of $72.99/month.

An example of the “$600 less than cable” claim can be found in the ad below.

This week, the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) provided an update on the situation, saying that it has rejected Google’s appeal and adopted the NAD’s recommendation for Google to discontinue the claim.

However, the NARB does bring up that “at least one reasonable interpretation of the challenged claim is that YouTube TV is $600 less than any comparable service available from companies traditionally associated with cable services.” In other words, the NARB feels that Google’s claim could be misconstrued as saying that it costs $600 less than comparable internet-based live TV streaming services. In this author’s opinion, that’s a big stretch – arguably bigger than Google’s own misleading claim.

Google, in response, says that is disagrees that anyone could “somehow understand ‘cable’ to mean something other than traditional cable television,” but says that it will “modify or cease the disputed advertising claim” and, at a later time, “reconsider the claim based on updated information.”