YouTube TV Reportedly Experimenting With Customizable Multiview Feature; Will it Be Ready for March Madness?
After months of the multiview feature on YouTube TV featuring only preset combinations of games, multiview may finally be getting an overhaul.
One of the biggest criticisms of YouTube TV when it released its multivew feature ahead of the 2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was that it did not allow for any customization. But that could be changing, as some Reddit users are reporting that they now have the ability to build their own multiview on YouTube TV — within the confines of the existing experience.
- YouTube TV is seemingly testing a “Build a mutliview” option for some customers while watching live sports.
- This feature allows you to create a multiview starting with one specific game, negating the need to scroll through dozens of multiview packages.
- A multiview that’s fully customizable with every game crossing sports could still be coming, but the technology is still catching up to audience demand.
What Does ‘Build a Multivew’ Allow You to Do?
According to Reddit user u/mtmaloney, the “Build a multiview” button appears when watching a particular live sporting event. They could then pick which other three broadcasts (in this case, all NBA games) they wanted to add to their multiview experience.
The post did not make it immediately clear whether the viewer could select the other three games being added to the multiview individually, or if YouTube TV shows three-game bundles to add to the single game of a customer’s choosing. The Streamable has reached out for clarification from YouTube TV, but has not received additional information as of publishing time. The Reddit thread did specify that subscribers who are seeing the “Build a multiview” button could not use it to create cross-sport multiviews.
A user test conducted by The Streamable did not show the “Build a multiview” option on Tuesday morning, so it’s likely only available during live sporting events. It is also possible that YouTube TV is only testing the ability with a select group of subscribers, which it frequently does when testing new features.
The Streamable’s test of YouTube TV revealed it did not have access to ‘Build a multiview’ as of yet.
Given the technological constraints that prevent viewers from building a unique four-screen experience of their own, what is most likely in The Streamable’s expert opinion is that YouTube TV is simply giving users a more convenient way of selecting the multiview experience that they would like, based on the existing multiview options that are available.
Another option is that YouTube TV has instead worked out an option to allow users to add existing three-game multiviews to any other game. Both options would provide additional control over watching and a major improvement in terms of discoverability.
Even if YouTube TV won’t allow subscribers to build a four-game mutliview window completely from the ground up, the updated multiview option will be a huge improvement for fans ahead of this year’s March Madness tournament — if it’s ready for wide launch by then. It will cut down dramatically on the amount of time fans spend scrolling through the endless mutliview options they’ll have during the tournament.
Why Hasn’t YouTube TV Launched a Fully Customizable Multiview Already?
Customers have certainly taken note of the limitations YouTube TV’s multiview feature currently has. Since its launch last March, multiview has only allowed fans to watch pre-selected game feeds of a given sport, whether they’re watching the NBA through an NBA League Pass subscription or the NFL via NFL Sunday Ticket. Ever since, subscribers have been clamoring for more choices from multiview.
From a technology standpoint, offering a completely customizable multiview isn’t easy to do. YouTube TV’s chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe acknowledged the demand for a multiview that allowed fans to choose their games in September, but pointed to technical difficulties and the desire to get multiview to market as reasons it launched without customization options.
“[Allowing users to switch out games in Multiview] is a very hard thing to do technically,” Coe said. “Put it this way, the feedback is, we hear you loud and clear.”
It’s likely this isn’t the last experiment YouTube TV will pursue in regards to multiview. ESPN allows users of its app to customize their multiview on Apple TV and Xbox devices, so the technology is there, it just has to be expanded. Whether YouTube TV engineers will make a breakthrough in this regard before March Madness is open to question, but it does appear that subscribers can expect a more user-friendly version of multiview before the tournament begins.
YouTube TV
YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service with more than 60 channels for $72.99/month. This plan includes local channels, 32 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs) in select markets. The service includes an unlimited DVR.