By Gavin Boyle
DirecTV has added a new feature that may help it retain some subscribers: the ability to view up to four channels at once through its Mix Channels feature.
“DirecTV has innovation in our DNA and is proud to have pioneered multi-channel viewing nearly two decades ago,” Vikash Sharma, the head of product at DirecTV, said in a statement. “Now we’re bringing the next generation of multiview to streaming with new mix channels to give consumers more flexibility and control over how they watch and discover their favorite programming – whether it’s four games, four news channels or a mix for everyone in the house.”
This new feature will introduce five new channels to DirecTV subscribers. These channels will feature a Sports Mix (ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, NBC Sports), League Sports Mix (MLB Network, NBA TV, NFL Network, NHL Network), News Mix (CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Weather, MSNBC), Business Mix (Bloomberg Television, Cheddar News, CNBC, Fox Business), and Kids Mix (Disney Channel, Disney Jr., Disney XD, Nickelodeon).
Related: Peacock Announces New Features for Summer Olympics
DirecTV introduced a similar experience for a limited time last winter which allowed viewers to keep up with election news through four channels at once. Some of DirecTV’s competitors have tested or launched similar multi-view initiatives in the past as well. For example, last summer, Peacock brought a multiview feature to its Olympics coverage. YouTube added a similar feature in 2023 to allow fans to view multiple March Madness games at once.
“Just in time for March Madness,” the new feature will allow viewers “to switch audio and captions between streams, and jump in and out of a fullscreen view of a game,” YouTube’s said in a blog post at the time
YouTube has since expanded the feature to NFL Sunday ticket, allowing football fans to view multiple games at the same time. The company was particularly proud to introduce this feature onto its platform as a technological workaround allowed it to provide access to devices that would have traditionally been to weak to show a multiview.
“Typically, when you think about a multiview experience, from a technical perspective, it requires a high-end user device to process and playback multiple streams at once and show them as one cohesive view on the screen. But the great thing about YouTube TV is that it doesn’t require any high-powered equipment, so we had to get creative in how we brought this to life,” explained German Cheung, the engineering lead for YouTube TV.
“In the absence of relying on end user devices, we moved the processing requirements to happen on our side, on YouTube’s servers,” Cheung continued. “This allows all subscribers to use the feature, regardless of their home equipment, because when it’s streamed to them, their device sees only one live feed, instead of two or four.”
DirecTV has now joined the party as well, offering a feature that many users seem to really enjoy when given access to.
Read Next: The Purpose Behind YouTube TV’s New ‘Multiview’ Feature
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