After Hulu announced that they are going to start charging for episodes eventually, YouTube goes and drops another bomb on television enthusiasts.  YouTube has said that they may offer streaming television shows the day after airing at a price of $1.99.  It seems as though the standard for an episode is $1.99, which is probably because of the standard iTunes market price.

I do know that many people are cutting back on their cable and satellite television packages.  Right now you can really get by on Hulu and Fancast, and for a few shows you can use iTunes at $2 a pop per show.  It will be interesting to see how the satellite industry reacts to this.  They will have to package deals that will want us to subscribe to their packages.  Right now I think they are doing a good job selling hard on sports packages.  With ESPN shows devoted to fantasy football and topical shows such as The League, the sports industry is vital to satellite.

Right off the bat the biggest difference between YouTube/Hulu and iTunes is that you can only stream the video, not download the entire file.  It all depends just how much they want to be able to let the viewer have.  There is already a lot of pirating going on with shows and studios are already losing money on it.  This $1.99 per episode cannot just be reactionary to that.  I would choose iTunes versus YouTube any day because of the option to rewatch it at a later date.  People are not dumb and if they are priced the same, iTunes will win out every day.  If you’re Apple, this is great news to you because it provides competition.  It also brings more people to be won over, which in the end means more revenue for someone.