
If you have a Roku set-top box and you’ve been enjoying the ability to watch YouTube videos from the comfort of your couch, we have some bad news for you. The YouTube channel in the Roku channel lineup was actually an unofficial and unsupported one, and Google recently caught wind of the fact. They’ve asked Roku to pull it from their channel list, and Roku complied.
Reportedly, the issue at hand was the fact that the channel used the MP4 version of YouTube videos that the service provides to mobile devices. That alone isn’t too bad, but the problem is that pre-roll advertisements and pop-up ads that appear over videos weren’t displayed, which made the service virtually ad-free.
Roku noted that they’ve been in negotiations with Google to bring YouTube support to Roku boxes for a long time now, and while they don’t have an ETA for when Roku owners will be able to officially watch YouTube videos on their TV, they’d love for it to happen. If you already have the channel added to your list, you can still enjoy it, but as of now, it’s gone and new users can’t add it.