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YouTube TV’s Multiview Feature Remains Frustratingly Limited

Ben Bowman
Ben Bowman was the Content Director of The Streamable. He cut the cord in 2009. He roots for all Detroit sports and is a fan of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Edgar Wright, Paul Thomas Anderson, Billy Wilder, Buster Keaton, and the Coen Brothers. Ben streams on an Apple TV.
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Ben Bowman

Since its debut during March Madness, YouTube TV’s multiview feature has been a nice perk for TV watchers who like to monitor several channels at once. But the feature remains more limited than it should be, and that’s a problem in an age where almost all other media consumption can be tailored to your preferences.

Right now, the multiview is locked to a group of preset channels.

News

Business News

Sports

Weather

This inflexibility is incredibly frustrating. In the case of the Business News and Weather multiview options, half the screen is black. Users should be able to fill that space with two other channels of their choice. In the case of sports, Golf Channel seems like an arbitrary choice. What if users want to watch the Big Ten Network or NFL Network?

The News option would also be frustrating for most consumers. As you see in the image at the top of this article, Fox News often stands alone with its right-wing worldview. Folks who enjoy that would probably prefer the other three slots to be filled with Newsmax, The Blaze, and OAN. For people outside Fox’s demographic, its inclusion alongside three other sources seems like a miscalculation. (While CNN, MSNBC, and BBC are focused on the Ukraine-Russia war, Fox is whipping up a Hunter Biden frenzy.)

Back during its run, PlayStation Vue allowed for a customizable 4-channel multiview. You could choose to monitor news and weather and sports. It’s bizarre that many years after that service went belly-up, we still don’t have that functionality across all live streamers.

If you’re interested in multiview, Fubo is your best choice at the moment. As long as you have an Apple TV streaming device, you can watch four different channels of your choosing and get sports stats as well. While switching from YouTube TV would mean the loss of AMC, Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TBS, TLC, TNT, Travel Channel, truTV, and WE tv, Fubo does allow the addition of lots of international sports channels.

Until YouTube TV solves this problem, multiview remains a nice idea with one major bug.

Ben Bowman
Ben Bowman was the Content Director of The Streamable. He cut the cord in 2009. He roots for all Detroit sports and is a fan of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Edgar Wright, Paul Thomas Anderson, Billy Wilder, Buster Keaton, and the Coen Brothers. Ben streams on an Apple TV.
Read full bio ›
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