The Multiview Imperative: How Technical Architecture Determines Streaming Success
From 2017 to 2025, YouTube TV grew from zero to an estimated 9.5 million subscribers, becoming the largest virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) in the United States. As Figure 1 shows, YouTube TV grabbed significant market share from traditional cable and satellite providers, with Comcast declining from over 22 million to 11.5 million subscribers and DirecTV falling from 20 million to 9.2 million over the same period. Clearly, YouTube benefited from the general cord-cutting tailwind that saw millions abandon expensive legacy pay-TV packages.
Figure 1. Pay TV subscribers by provider
But YouTube TV's success story extends beyond simply capturing cord-cutters. The platform also caught up to and decisively outpaced Hulu + Live TV, its largest direct streaming competitor, surging past Hulu's 4.9 million subscribers to claim market leadership among streaming-first services. While traditional providers hemorrhaged subscribers, YouTube TV's trajectory remained consistently upward, demonstrating that the platform didn't just benefit from industry disruption; it actively drove it.
YouTube TV’s $2+ billion annual investment in NFL Sunday Ticket rights certainly accelerated its growth trajectory. No secret there; sports audiences are young, relatively affluent, and incredibly sticky. Sports has proven to be a reliable engine for subscriber growth and retention, not just for global players like Netflix and Prime Video, but for regional and country-specific services as well. Not surprisingly, according to L.E.K. Consulting, media companies are expected to spend approximately $33 billion on national sports rights in 2025, with streaming platforms nearly doubling their stake since 2023 to around $7.1?billion of that spend.
But the largely unsung hero in YouTube’s growth may be a feature that cost the company 99% less to implement than Sunday Ticket: multiview streaming capability. As this article shows, if you’re broadcasting sports, multiview--particularly Build Your Own Multiview (BYOMV)--is quickly becoming an expected feature among sophisticated viewers. It’s also one of the most affordable and effective ways to amplify the value of your programming, particularly when your content isn’t exclusive and faces direct competition in the same market.
The YouTube TV Success Formula: Content Plus Experience
YouTube's market transformation didn't happen by accident. When Google secured NFL Sunday Ticket rights in December 2022, industry analysts predicted significant subscriber growth. The results exceeded expectations: YouTube TV's acceleration from 5 million subscribers in July 2022 to 8 million by December 2023, with continued growth to 9.4 million by early 2025, demonstrated the power of premium sports content in driving streaming adoption.
However, the growth story reveals a more nuanced reality that has implications for every streaming service with sports content. Clearly, Sunday Ticket provided the acquisition catalyst, with 41% of Sunday Ticket customers being new YouTube TV subscribers. But multiview technology, launched just three months after the Sunday Ticket announcement, became the retention and differentiation engine that sustained competitive advantage. While not every streaming service can afford Sunday Ticket-level content investments, virtually any platform with sports programming can implement multiview technology to dramatically enhance the value of its existing content portfolio.
With the NFL and college football about to kick off, and the NBA not far behind, all services that deliver sports programming, whether traditional cable/satellite or vMVPD, should be strongly considering a multiview strategy. To inform that strategy, let's define multiview and take a quick look at some of the major implementations in both traditional and streaming markets.
About Multiview
As you probably know, multiview allows viewers to watch multiple live video feeds simultaneously on a single screen, typically supporting 2-4 concurrent channels with the ability to switch audio between feeds (Figure 2). In its YouTube iteration, the technology evolved from simple preset combinations, like watching four predetermined games during March Madness, to fully customizable experiences where users build their own viewing layouts. The evolving industry term for this is Build Your Own Multiview, or BYOMV.
Figure 2. Multiview typically supports 2-4 concurrent channels
Multiview aligns perfectly with modern viewer behavior patterns documented by Parks Asociates research. 40% of sports viewers now watch exclusively via streaming platforms, with sports fans spending $111+ monthly on streaming services, which is 33% more than non-sports viewers. According to the Parks report, these viewers share distinct and desirable engagement patterns: longer session times, higher retention rates, and willingness to pay premium pricing for enhanced experiences.
As shown in Figure 3, multiview ranks fourth in viewer appeal in the sports watching segment, behind standard features like multiple games to watch, in-game stats, and DVR. This preference, combined with multiview being prominently featured by the category leader, YouTube, makes multiview a highly desirable feature.
Figure 3. Multiview was the fourth most appealing feature in a recent Parks Associates study, ranking fourth behind multiple games, in-game stats, and DVR.
The History of Multiview
The emergence of multiview as a core feature in sports streaming can be traced through several industry milestones. NFL RedZone, launched in 2009, first captured mass-market enthusiasm for a curated, multi-game experience. In 2025, MarketWatch wrote that RedZone “allows viewers to keep track of a lot of games simultaneously whether they are playing fantasy football, betting on games or just enjoy the stimulation of watching live highlights from every game.”
FuboTV became the first major vMVPD to launch multiview features for streaming in 2020, which met with significant viewer acclaim. As an example, the Six Colors blog said, "once you get the hang of it, Fubo TV’s Multiview feature—which lets you put two, three, or four different live channels on the screen at once—is simply amazing...During the Olympics, I popped in four of NBC’s channels and switched around—you can swipe around to choose which picture’s audio plays, and click to temporarily bring one of the channels up to full-screen. I’ll be using this feature all the time on busy sports weekends, I think."
FuboTV had one very significant problem, however; device limitations. Specifically, Engadget reported, “For now, the feature is only available on Apple TV, but FuboTV hopes to change that." The article then relayed a comment from FuboTV staff, which said, "‘We believe Multiview 2.0 sets the foundation to build upon better experiences on Apple TV and, of course, we will work to bring it to our other apps and supported devices." Unfortunately, it took almost four years for Fubo to expand the feature set with a beta for Roku devices.
Precise market share information is challenging to find, but it appears that Apple TV represented at most around 13% of the SmartTV market during most of this four-year period, which obviously limited the benefit of this feature to other FuboTV customers. Interestingly, the decision to launch multiview solely on Apple TV suggests that FuboTV implemented a client-side architecture. That approach relies on the end-user device to handle multiple video streams, which requires more local processing power and must be implemented on a device-by-device basis.
As we’ll discuss later, a server-side multiview implementation would have enabled immediate support across a much broader range of platforms. That would have dramatically improved the rollout impact and helped FuboTV extract more value from a feature they rightly bet on, but failed to scale.
YouTube TV: Multiview for All
After FuboTV, the next major multiview release was from YouTube TV. In its engineering blog, YouTube made it clear that broad compatibility was clearly a goal. Seemingly taking aim at FuboTV, the blog states, "[t]ypically, multiviewing requires a high-powered device, which means it is often limited to users who have specific equipment. When building this feature, our goal was to ensure that it is accessible to users across all TV devices." When shipped, YouTube TV's approach "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.
Though YouTube's first implementation only allowed users to choose among several fixed multiview arrangements, rather than build their own, it was instantly heralded by Tom's Guide as YouTube TV's "best new feature."
Figure 4. Tom's Guide immediately coined Multiview as YouTube TV's "best new feature."
After the initial release, YouTube TV improved multiview quickly, progressing from a few preselected layouts for March Madness, to enabling users to build their own Multiview combinations by picking from a list of available sports channels (like ESPN and FS1), to enabling Multiview for news, weather, business, and selected entertainment channels, to an AI-powered any-live-channel Multiview with smart recommendations
Multiview's contribution to YouTube TV's overall success was noticed by reporters and analytics that monitor the live TV market. In April 2025, the Deadline blog observed that "aided by multiview, unlimited DVR and other features, YouTube TV has become one of the top pay-TV operators in the U.S. just eight years after its launch."
Within the YouTube itself, the importance of the feature is clear. In Google's May 2025 earnings conference call, Google's Neil Mohan, CEO of YouTube, cited multiview first when discussing YouTube TV's success. "We have over 8 million subscribers on YouTube TV. And so features like Multiview, key plays, those are areas that you should continue to see us invest in. In fact, one of the feature requests we get is people love Multiview, they want more choice."
Formula 1 TV Premium: Multiview as a Premium Differentiator
In March 2025, Formula 1 launched F1 TV Premium, a new subscription tier designed to let racing fans customize their live viewing experience with 4K Ultra HD/HDR and choose their own multiview technology. Specifically, F1 TV Premium subscribers can choose from 24 different live feeds, including the main race coverage, onboard cameras for each driver, and real-time telemetry, and display up to four simultaneously on their screen, allowing them to create a custom multiview experience for each race. The service costs $129.99, a 53% premium over its TV Pro service (without multiview, 4K HDR and watching on multiple devices).
At launch, multiview was supported on Chrome web browsers, Apple iOS, Apple TV, and Roku, though not yet available to Android TV or many smart TV platforms. 4K and HDR viewing were only available on Roku and Apple TV devices.
Formula 1 launched F1 TV Premium in March 2025 and F1 executives touted the personalization angle as a core value proposition. Dean Locke, F1’s executive director of TV production, commented that, "[w]e have this incredible, diverse fan base...We want to enrich that experience by letting fans choose their level of personalisation—watching your favorite onboard while still following the main feed, engaging with data screens. I believe the future of broadcasting is personalisation” (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Formula 1 launched with build your own multiview, but with limited platform support.
Media and User Reception: Mixed at Best
The Verge highlighted the limited reach of the feature, noting that, “Other than the extra cost, the bad news is that availability of the new features is limited. They’re not on Android, or browsers other than Chrome, and 4K / HDR viewing will require Apple TV or Roku for now.” Comments on the site were even more brutal, with one frustrated viewer sharing "I was so pumped for this, finally 4k! I use my Google Streamer with the F1 TV app, so I guess that means I don't get access to the new features or higher quality. WTAF F1?"
Reddit also captured the common frustration with platform support. One user remarked, “I probably would have paid for Premium, but noticed they're not supporting the new features on Android. I use a Shield on my TV and I'm not buying an Apple TV just for F1.”
On the financial side, Formula 1 has released no data on subscriber uptake, usage rates, or engagement impact for F1 TV Premium. So, as of this writing, we don't know how many users are willing to pay for the clearly enhanced experience.
Comcast & Xfinity Multiview: What They Did & Why It Matters
In October 2024, traditional broadcaster Comcast introduced multiview to a limited set of X1 users as part of special event coverage. Although not heavily promoted, the feature was mentioned in Comcast’s election night materials: “Eligible Xfinity customers with X1 can watch live coverage from multiple networks at once with a new Multiview experience.” This quiet preview also encompassed playoff sports, allowing the company to test functionality, performance, and UX under high-traffic conditions without the pressure of a formal product launch.
Figure 6. Comcast Multiview as part of the Xfinity World Soccer Ticket.
The full-scale launch came in March 2025, strategically timed for NCAA March Madness. With the new rollout, Comcast expanded Multiview to “millions of X1 customers,” as reported by TVTechnology. The feature allowed viewers to display up to four live NCAA men’s or women’s basketball games simultaneously, switch audio between feeds, and access real-time stats and betting data via dedicated Sports Zone and Odds Zone panels. Comcast positioned this not just as a tool for casual fans, but as a way to appeal to fantasy sports players, sports bettors, and power users tracking multiple games at once.
Technically, Comcast Multiview is restricted to specific hardware within the X1 ecosystem, including devices like the Xi6, XG1v4, XiOne, XiD, and Xi5. It does not run on Flex boxes, mobile apps, or smart TVs, though that was a business decision by Comcast, not a limitation of its server-side multiview implementation. This server-side functionality is powered by technology from MediaKind and Skreens. In the current implementation, viewers must choose between multiple available preset layouts, with no BYOMV (build your own multiview) functionality.
By August 2025, Comcast expanded Multiview to cover the FIFA World Cup and other international soccer events. As part of its new Xfinity World Soccer Ticket, Comcast made Multiview a central feature of the soccer experience, allowing subscribers to watch multiple matches in 4K on a single screen. The move signaled Comcast’s intent to use Multiview not just for U.S.-centric events like March Madness, but also to differentiate its service for international sports fans.
Despite its visibility, independent media coverage was limited, and I couldn't find any formal third-party reviews of Multiview. However, user reactions on Reddit were generally positive, albeit with a few bugs. One Reddit user noted, “The multiview was great yesterday for the NCAA tourney”, but immediately added frustration that on the following day, it was only showing women's games, though the lack of follow up complaints likely indicate that this was a transient problem.
Tailwinds Driving the Rise of Multiview Technology
Beyond the service-specific features and sporting content, there are other factors driving demand for multiview. One of the strongest is the explosive growth of sports betting and fantasy sports. One survey found that twenty-two percent of Americans, including 48% of men 18 to 49 years old, have an account with at least one online sportsbook. According to another source, bets involving multiple games, or parlays, "accounted for 70% of all NFL and NBA bets placed on FanDuel."
Beyond multiple-game parlays, industry surveys, betting site data, and anecdotal reports indicate that most active sports bettors typically place small wagers across multiple games rather than concentrating on a single outcome. Clearly, whether you're betting multiple games individually, or via a parlay, multiview is a must-have feature .
Fantasy sports has the same effect. By 2023, 19% of American adults (around 62 million) played fantasy sports, up from 13% in 2014. In a fantasy league, team owners draft multiple players from different teams, and their combined fantasy score determines the winners and losers. Like parlay and multigame betters, fantasy owners must follow multiple games to monitor how their teams are doing, another must-have scenario for multiview.
Multiview demand is further reinforced by the broader trend of multi-screen engagement. It's estimated that over 80% of sports fans use a second device (like a smartphone or tablet) while watching live sports. Deloitte found that 77% of sports fans, especially younger ones, multitask during live games, whether checking stats, placing bets, or watching other games..
Finally, streaming itself is reshaping sports consumption. 33% of U.S. internet households now subscribe to at least one direct-to-consumer sports streaming service, and 40% of sports viewers rely exclusively on streaming for their content. With technological hurdles like latency and compatibility now core obstacles, features like multiview, when implemented seamlessly, can keep viewers engaged and reduce churn.
Multiview Is No Longer Optional
The takeaway from every implementation to date is clear: multiview is essential. This is how the most avid, highest-value sports fans want to watch. Whether they’re tracking bets, managing fantasy lineups, or just bouncing between key moments, fans who get access to multiview tend to love it, and use it heavily.
Multiview's attraction to sports viewers is clear. Comcast tied its multiview rollout directly to marquee events like March Madness and the FIFA World Cup, maximizing exposure during peak sports windows. Formula 1 launched F1 TV Premium with multiview in Spring 2025, explicitly framing the feature as a core part of the modern fan experience. These aren't add-ons—they're strategic differentiators.
If you're sitting on exclusive content, multiview doesn't dilute that value. It enhances it. Viewers aren't less engaged, they're more immersed, more informed, and more likely to stay tuned during slow patches or commercial breaks. On the other hand, if your content is also available elsewhere, not offering multiview gives competitors a clear edge. That’s exactly what happened with early FuboTV implementations, which launched on Apple TV only, cutting off large swaths of the audience.
Platform availability matters. Client-side rollouts tied to specific hardware, like Apple TV or Chrome browsers, shut out users who aren’t on those platforms. F1 and FuboTV both faced complaints or limitations stemming from narrow device support. Server-side implementations avoid this problem, enabling broad device coverage and easier scaling without offloading complexity to end-user devices.
Finally, any multiview is better than none, but presets only go so far. The most advanced implementations, like YouTube TV, gave users full BYOMV (build your own multiview) capabilities, letting them combine up to four feeds of their choice. That level of control has quietly become the gold standard, whether you’re watching multiple games or crafting your own F1 pit wall.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Skreens. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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