Sling TV is an Internet Television Revolution in a Post-Cable World
As Bloomberg reported last March, the number of people who pay for TV service (through cable and satellite) fell by more than 250,000 in 2013. That number may seem small, but it only got worse for Comcast and Time Warner Cable. According to International Business Times, the top 13 pay-TV providers posted their largest third-quarter loss in history in 2014.
Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon have done their share to cut into the pay cable model by streaming shows and providing original programming for a lower price than cable providers. Conventional wisdom says this is the way millennials prefer to access their content.
There’s just one caveat: these services do not provide that intangible comfort of a live or shared experience to their audience. This could be the thrill (or horror) of watching the Green Bay Packers melt down in the fourth quarter in epic fashion against the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship game. It could also be those moments when millions of people tuned in at the same time to watch such unfolding events as President Barack Obama announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, or the capture of the Boston marathon bombers. The Internet can provide these images via live-streaming, but it still doesn’t capture the immediacy of television.
Dish Network’s Sling TV feature hopes to bridge this gap between providing cheaper alternatives to cable subscription while still providing a the live experience that are the bread and butter of channels like ESPN and CNN.
Sling TV will give customers online access to a small number of cable channels for $20 a month without a contract obligation. Dish CEO has gone on record, saying that the Sling TV app was primarily geared toward millennials (the much-coveted 18-to-35 year old demographic audience). Customers won’t be required to purchase a Dish membership or even a cable subscription.