After a tense week of negotiations, Roku and Google say they have yet to reach an agreement over the usage of YouTube TV on Roku’s streaming platform, which has caused Roku to remove the app from its Channel Store.
In an email to users today, Roku warns that deleting the YouTube TV app will result in losing the app in the near future and says that it is temporarily preventing users from signing up for a new subscription to the service.
Roku says it won’t remove the channel outright from the platform “unless Google takes actions that require the full removal of the channel,” and thankfully it hasn’t reached that point yet.
Roku has accused Google of leveraging its technology in an unfair way and in a statement says it wants Google to meet four simple commitments: “First, not to manipulate consumer search results. Second, not to require access to data not available to anyone else. Third, not to leverage their YouTube monopoly to force Roku to accept hardware requirements that would increase consumer costs. Fourth, not to act in a discriminatory and anticompetitive manner against Roku.”
In an interview with The Verge, a Google spokesperson called the claims “baseless” and said that Google “made no requests to access user data or interfere with search results.” The spokesperson said that they hoped Roku and Google could reach an agreement soon, and recognized that this contract negotiation is hurting users more than anyone else.
Steps to keep your access to YouTube TV
Unfortunately, if you haven’t downloaded the YouTube TV app already on your Roku, you’re too late. As of Friday morning EST, the app no longer exists on the Roku store.
That being said, as long as you previously had the app downloaded, it should still work as normal. Be careful not to remove the app while content negotiations are still underway, however it should be fine to move the app to an SD card if your Roku player has a slot for it.
The regular YouTube app remains unaffected in the negotiation and should be available to download on the Roku Channel Store.