YouTube TV users can expect a $15 increase in their monthly bill this month as YouTube raises the price of its TV streaming service to $64.99. The increase was announced and took effect on June 30th for new subscriptions, with current subscribers seeing, "these changes reflected in their subsequent billing cycle on or after July 30."

From the blog post by Christian Oestlien, YouTube TV's Vice President of Product Management, "We don't take these decisions lightly, and realize how hard this is for our members. That said, this new price reflects the rising cost of content and we also believe it reflects the complete value of YouTube TV, from our breadth of content to the features that are changing how we watch live TV."

The price increase from $49.99 comes as the ViacomCBS family is added to the streaming catalog and improved features. Starting this month, the catalog now includes BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land and VH1. The BET Her, MTV2, MTV Classic, Nick Jr., NickToons, and TeenNick channels are set to appear at a later date.

However, the price increase has been met with criticism on social media. One Twitter reply to the announcement read, "I don't want these channels. I don't want to pay for these channels. I signed up for YouTubeTV to get away from this kind of stuff. It's time to start offering tiered packages so when I'm happy with my channels I don't need to be railroaded into paying for things I don't want." Another responding with, "I don't wanna pay an extra $15 a month for channels I won't even watch. You should have at least given existing subscribers the option to keep their current channels and pricing."

YouTuber Andy Signore from the channel Popcorn Planet questioned whether YouTube and streaming companies as a whole will follow the same path as the cable companies with price increases and will we eventually be paying the same prices as cable.

Asserting in his video, YouTube TV Stupidly Gouges Customers Like Cable Did, "So this whole streaming debate is getting frustrating because you know the whole point of having YouTube TV was to get rid of cable. Right, and now cable costs are going so high, the streaming costs are going so high we're just eventually going to be back to paying cable prices for a lot of this streaming stuff that we were trying to be cheap on."

Signore continues with, "All these streaming places Hulus, Nextflix, Disney+, HBO Max are trying to get high enough and start increasingly adding more and more money. Now Netflix is already jumping up ten, fifteen dollars depending on the plan you get could they eventually say you know what it's twenty dollars now. Yeah, and then twenty-five dollars. Now how far can they go before someone actually says you know what I'm getting rid of my Netfiex. That's the interesting debate here."