• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, over 1 hour ago

YouTube TV and NBCUniversal’s tussle over what seems like regular carriage issues did not take the sharp turn pushed by big internet-based bundles of live, linear TV networks.

YouTube TV wanted not only a big piece of financial streaming from that pie -- a piece of subscriber fees from NBCU --  but access to some highly viewed streaming content on Peacock, according to reports.

YouTube was angling to secure high-profile content such as soccer/European football, Premier League and the highly viewed Peacock “Love Island” franchise series programming -- and possibly ad inventory from NBCU's highest-value TV individual TV series, “Sunday Night Football.”

Ease of access is the reason. Viewers would not need to punch up the Peacock app on the YouTube program navigation system, but could more easily view that content directly via YouTube TV app.

In turn, YouTube could command higher ad pricing -- and so could NBC, in theory. Analysts would say that valuable inventory could be bundled into the bigger Google advertising ecosystem.

But instead, YouTube TV landed a future new cable TV network: NBC Sports Network.

Peacock will also become available on YouTube Primetime Channels and through Google TV devices.

The deal will also include carriage of NBC owned stations, streamer Peacock, and cable entertainment network Bravo, as well as yet-to-be-spun off channels to Versant Media. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.

To refresh the bigger picture, YouTube TV is no longer a niche, internet-based pay TV bundler/seller of live, linear TV networks. It is now 10 million subscribers strong -- the fourth-largest pay TV distributor of any type.

Only Charter Communications (Spectrum), with 12.6 million subscribers), Comcast Corp (Xfinity), with 11.8 million; and Direct TV -- industry estimated at 11 million -- have more.

And YouTube TV continues to trend higher, according to analysts.

Now think about this: As a Google-owned company it joins up with its sister platform YouTube, the streaming service giant, which has the largest share of total day streaming viewing of any platform -- a 13.1% share, according to Nielsen’s August reading.

On another front -- and unrelated to issues with NBCU -- YouTube is flexing its muscles with another major TV network group owner. It dropped TelevisaUnivision -- which, like NBCU, witnessed its carriage contract expiring on September 30.

The issue, according to reports, stems from YouTube's plan, to shift Univision to a more expensive add-on-tier.

Media power? Monitoring the major TV media companies keeps shifting -- while the marketplace keeps maturing or evolving.