Technologies

YouTube TV vs. Hulu Plus Live TV: The Pros and Cons of Each Streaming Service Rated

Hefty cable bill? Here are two premium live TV options which can save you money without missing out on the content you love.

We’re all watching more TV, and with sports such as NBA basketball and NHL hockey getting to the sharp end of their seasons, it’s a great time to consider a live TV streaming service. At CNET we’ve tested six of the major services, and our two favorites for premium users — cord-cutters who don’t mind paying a bit more for a full package of channels and features — are YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV.

These two cost more than most streaming services but they’re still cheaper than cable. A premium subscription lets you cut the cable TV cord while keeping features like an advanced DVR with program guide and extensive on-demand content. Both services offer a large selection of live channels, such as CNN, ESPN and TNT, as well as local stations ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and more. You can access them via media streamers such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV or Apple TV, your game console or your smart TV itself.

In general, we like YouTube TV best, because of a handful of important channels that Hulu lacks, including your local PBS station. It’s also $5 less expensive at $65 per month. However, Hulu also has an excellent selection of channels and adds a gigantic catalog of on-demand shows and movies as well as the Disney Bundle — Disney Plus and ESPN Plus — included in the $70 price.

Here’s how they stack up.

Sarah Tew/CNET

YouTube TV

Best live TV service overall

2022

With an excellent channel selection, easy-to-use interface and best-in-class cloud DVR, YouTube TV is the best cable TV replacement. It offers a $20 4K upgrade, but the downside is there isn’t much to watch at present. If you don’t mind paying a bit more than the Sling TVs of the world, YouTube TV offers the highest standard of live TV streaming.

Read our YouTube TV review.

$65 at YouTube TV

Hulu/Screenshot by Ty Pendlebury/CNET

Hulu Plus Live TV

Best for including Hulu, Disney Plus and ESPN Plus

Hulu’s greatest assets are the integration of a full complement of live TV channels with a massive catalog of on-demand content, and all for the one price. Hulu’s channel count is solid, including some must-have programming. Its price $70 includes Disney Plus and ESPN Plus. Starting Dec. 8, Hulu will change its Live TV packaging to include Disney’s new ad-supported plan for the $70 price, and offer higher-priced choices for people who don’t want to watch ads.

Read our Hulu With Live TV review.

$70 at Hulu

YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV compared

	YouTube TV	Hulu Plus Live TV
Base price	$65 per month	$70 per month
Free trial	Yes	Yes
Number of popular channels (out of 100)	78	74
Local ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC channels	Yes	Yes
Local PBS channels	Yes	No
Simultaneous streams per account	3 ($20 for unlimited and 4K)	2 ($10 option for unlimited)
Family member/user profiles	Yes	Yes
Cloud DVR storage	Unlimited	50 hours ($10 option for 200 hours)
Fast-forward through or skip commercials with cloud DVR	Yes	No (Yes with $10 DVR option)

Channels: YouTube wins but Hulu is solid too

The biggest difference comes down to channels. Comparing the total channel counts from our big list of the top 100 channels on every service, YouTube TV comes out on top with 79 from that list, compared to 73 on Hulu. That total doesn’t include every channel the services carry, just the ones in the top 100 as determined by editors at CNET, but it still provides a good indication.

The two share most major national channels including Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, ESPN, Fox News, NFL, TBS, USA Network and more, but there are a few differences.

Here’s a condensed version of that list showing the 15 of those 100 channels carried by one and not the other.

Major channel differences

Channel	YouTube TV	Hulu Plus Live TV
PBS	Yes	No
A&E	No	Yes
AMC	Yes	No
BBC America	Yes	No
BBC World News	Yes	No
Boomerang	No	Yes
History	No	Yes
IFC	Yes	No
Lifetime	No	Yes
NBA TV	Yes	No
Sundance TV	Yes	No
Tastemade	Yes	No
Vice	No	Yes
WE tv	Yes	No

Both services offer all four of the major local channels — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — in most areas of the country, and both also carry local affiliates from The CW and MyTV. Only YouTube TV carries PBS local stations; you can’t watch your local PBS affiliate live on Hulu.

Neither service offers many regional sports networks after both YouTube TV and Hulu dropped them in 2020. Beyond RSNs, however, YouTube TV has an advantage in national sports networks, with NBA TV available as part of its base package. Though YouTube TV used to have MLB Network as well, it dropped the channel earlier this year. You can pay another $11 to get the «Sports Plus» add-on that also includes Fox College Sports, GolTV, NFL RedZone and Fox Soccer Plus. Hulu users can sign up for a $10 package which includes NFL RedZone, Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, MAVTV Motorsports Network, TVG and TVG2.

Premium channels like HBO, Starz and Showtime are also available for extra fees, and Hulu has two optional channel packages. One is an add-on for $8 per month with 17 channels including MTV Classic, CNBC World, the Cooking Channel and Science, and the other is a Spanish-language package with seven channels for $5. YouTube TV doesn’t have any additional channel packages, although you can add individual channels like Shudder and CuriosityStream for additional fees.

Usability: YouTube TV has simpler menus

The YouTube TV interface on Roku.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The menus and interfaces on both are quite different from one another and from regular cable, and we like YouTube TV’s menus better overall.

YouTube TV: In general the YouTube TV interface is easier to use, and not just to people used to using regular YouTube. If you’re using the desktop or app versions, Google’s streamer offers a streamlined structure — even if it’s not as pretty as Hulu.

Hulu Plus Live TV: If it was all a matter of which interface is more fun, then Hulu would take it. Hulu’s look is brighter, and though it lacks YouTube’s comprehensive search it’s still relatively easy drill down into the kind of content you want to watch.

The difference in the number of simultaneous streams is worth noting, especially for families and other households who watch a lot of TV. YouTube TV lets you stream to three different devices — say, the living room TV, a bedroom TV and a tablet — at the same time, while Hulu lets you stream to two. Pay Hulu a hefty $10 extra per month and it will upgrade your number of streams to unlimited.

YouTube TV has an excellent cloud DVR but Hulu closed the gap with an upgrade in 2022. Both now have unlimited storage and let you fast-forward through commercials in recorded content, so while we still consider YouTube TV’s DVR the gold standard, Hulu’s is very good too.

Read more: Best TV Antenna for 2023

On-demand and originals: Hulu with the runaway win

Only Murders in the Building is an Hulu exclusive

Hulu

YouTube TV includes on-demand TV shows and movies from participating networks and shows, much like your cable service, and also offers YouTube Originals commercial-free. But it pales in comparison to Hulu.

As we mentioned above, a Hulu Plus Live TV subscription unlocks all of the on-demand TV shows and movies available on the standard Hulu service, including thousands of episodes of network TV shows, as well as originals like The Bear, The Handmaid’s Tale, Only Murders in the Building, Pam & Tommy and the movie Palm Springs. It also includes a Disney Plus and ESPN Plus subscription, with their massive on-demand libraries.

Which service is best for you?

Both services represent the peak of what live TV streaming has to offer, and both are better overall than the other two major premium options, FuboTV and DirecTV Stream. Your choice between the two comes down to cost, channel selection, usability and content, and in our book YouTube TV bests Hulu Plus Live TV in most of those areas. Hulu enables you to integrate a wide channel selection with its exemplary on-demand library which may be worth it for some. In the end though it’s all about having access to your favorite channels, so choose the service which gives you the channels you want.

Channel comparison

Below you’ll find a chart that’s a smaller version of this massive channel comparison. It contains the top 100 channels from each service. Some notes:

Yes = The channel is available on the cheapest pricing tier. That price is listed next to the service’s name.
No = The channel isn’t available at all on that service.
$ = The channel is available for an extra fee.
Not every channel a service carries is listed, just the «top 100» as determined by CNET’s editors. Minor channels like AXS TV, CNBC World, Discovery Life, GSN, POP and Universal Kids didn’t make the cut.
Regional sports networks — channels devoted to showing regular-season games of particular pro baseball, basketball and hockey teams — are not listed. To find out if your local RSN is available you can search YouTube TV by ZIP code here and search Hulu Plus Live TV by ZIP code here.

Top 100 Channels

Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)
Total channels:	78	74
ABC	Yes	Yes
CBS	Yes	Yes
Fox	Yes	Yes
NBC	Yes	Yes
PBS	Yes	No
CW	Yes	Yes
MyNetworkTV	Yes	Yes
Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)
A&E	No	Yes
ACC Network	Yes	Yes
Accuweather	No	No
AMC	Yes	No
Animal Planet	Yes	Yes
BBC America	Yes	No
BBC World News	Yes	No
BET	Yes	Yes
Big Ten Network	Yes	Yes
Bloomberg TV	No	Yes
Boomerang	No	Yes
Bravo	Yes	Yes
Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)
Cartoon Network	Yes	Yes
CBS Sports Network	Yes	Yes
Cheddar	Yes	Yes
Cinemax	$	$
CMT	Yes	Yes
CNBC	Yes	Yes
CNN	Yes	Yes
Comedy Central	Yes	Yes
Cooking Channel	No	$
Destination America	No	$
Discovery Channel	Yes	Yes
Disney Channel	Yes	Yes
Disney Junior	Yes	Yes
Disney XD	Yes	Yes
E!	Yes	Yes
EPIX	$	No
ESPN	Yes	Yes
ESPN 2	Yes	Yes
ESPNEWS	Yes	Yes
ESPNU	Yes	Yes
Food Network	Yes	Yes
Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)
Fox Business	Yes	Yes
Fox News	Yes	Yes
Fox Sports 1	Yes	Yes
Fox Sports 2	Yes	Yes
Freeform	Yes	Yes
FX	Yes	Yes
FX Movies	Yes	Yes
FXX	Yes	Yes
FYI	No	Yes
Golf Channel	Yes	Yes
Hallmark	Yes	Yes
HBO/HBO Max	$	$
HGTV	Yes	Yes
History	No	Yes
HLN	Yes	Yes
IFC	Yes	No
Investigation Discovery	Yes	Yes
Lifetime	No	Yes
Lifetime Movie Network	No	Yes
Magnolia	No	$
Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)
MLB Network	No	No
Motor Trend	Yes	Yes
MSNBC	Yes	Yes
MTV	Yes	Yes
MTV2	Yes	$
National Geographic	Yes	Yes
Nat Geo Wild	Yes	Yes
NBA TV	Yes	No
NBC Sports Network	Yes	Yes
NFL Network	Yes	Yes
NFL Red Zone	$	$
NHL Network	No	No
Nickelodeon	Yes	Yes
Nick Jr.	Yes	Yes
Nicktoons	Yes	$
OWN	Yes	Yes
Oxygen	Yes	Yes
Paramount Network	Yes	Yes
Science	No	$
Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)
SEC Network	Yes	Yes
Showtime	$	$
Smithsonian	Yes	Yes
Starz	$	$
Sundance TV	Yes	No
Syfy	Yes	Yes
Tastemade	Yes	No
TBS	Yes	Yes
TCM	Yes	Yes
TeenNick	Yes	$
Telemundo	Yes	Yes
Tennis Channel	No	No
TLC	Yes	Yes
TNT	Yes	Yes
Travel Channel	Yes	Yes
TruTV	Yes	Yes
TV Land	Yes	Yes
USA Network	Yes	Yes
VH1	Yes	Yes
Vice	No	Yes
WE tv	Yes	No
Channel	YouTube TV ($65)	Hulu with Live TV ($70)

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Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.