YouTube takes over the air with nearly 4,000 free TV episodes

YouTube is the latest company to offer free TV shows with ads. The video giant says you’ll now be able to stream nearly 4,000 TV episodes for free, as long as you’re also willing to watch ads during the show. Offers available include Hell’s KitchenAnd the AndromedaAnd the heartland, You’ll be able to watch them in the US on the web, mobile devices, and “the most connected TVs via the YouTube TV app,” said a YouTube blog post.

With its new free TV shows, YouTube faces a number of major competitors. One is over-the-air TV — by offering free on-demand TV, YouTube will likely hope that you’ll see what’s available on its platform rather than browsing the channel to see what else might be out there.

And there are actually many options for streaming ad-supported TV for free, including TobyAnd the zomoAnd the plexAnd the Roccooffers from PhysioAnd the Samsung – just to name a few – so YouTube is late for the game. However, YouTube is also where many people spend a lot of time watching videos, so it’s not hard to imagine people checking out TV shows that they can stream for free while scrolling through other YouTube content.

Free shows can also tempt people to switch from Roku, a company owned by YouTube owner Google General Disputes With. Roku doesn’t sit still, though; According to a report in November, it plans to develop more than 50 original shows that could appear on the free and ad-supported Roku channel. If we’re going by potential users based on device ownership, then Roku, which says 155 million people You live in homes with Roku devices, much smaller than YouTube. Google recently said that there are more than 3 billion Android devices In the wild, this is only a portion of the potential devices that are easily accessible on YouTube.

Free YouTube TV shows joins the platform’s selection of free movies with ads, which currently includes Gone in sixty seconds And the Legally Blonde. The company plans to add up to 100 shows and movies each week.