Many sports fans would like to get rid of cable TV, but need it to watch live sports.
That’s about to change.
DISH Network announced Jan. 5 it is launching Sling TV, an Internet-only television subscription package that delivers live sports, including ESPN, as well as other news, family and lifestyle channels.
“Sling TV provides a viable alternative for live television to the millennial audience,” said DISH president and CEO Joseph P. Clayton, in a press release. “This service gives millions of consumers a new consideration for pay-TV; Sling TV fills a void for an underserved audience.”
The service will be available for $20 a month for customers nationwide, starting in the first quarter of 2015. No contract, credit check or hardware installation will be required.
In addition to ESPN and ESPN2, the package will offer HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, TNT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, ABC Family, Disney Channel, CNN and TBS along with video-on-demand programming and online video content from Makers Studios. It will not include broadcast stations, including local news.
For $5 a month, customers will be able to buy add-on programming focusing on specific content. “Kids Extra’’ will have Boomerang, Duck TV, Baby TV, Disney XD and the Disney Junior channel. “News & Info Extra” will have DIY, HLN, Bloomberg TV and the Cooking Channel. Other add-on packs will become available throughout the year.
The service will be accessible on laptops and tablets anywhere there’s a wired, Wi-Fi or mobile broadband connection. It will also be viewable on regular TVs through connected devices such as an Amazon Fire TV, Roku box, Xbox One and select Samsung Smart TVs.
Consumers will be able to control most live Sling TV channels by pausing, rewinding and fast-forwarding programs. Some channels will allow viewers to watch a selection of shows that were aired in the past three days without the need for a DVR.
However, Sling TV will only be viewable on a single device at a time, meaning multiple people in a household won’t be able to watch different shows.
By allowing people to watch cable TV without signing up for traditional cable TV bundles, Sling TV puts DISH ahead of competitors such as DirecTV, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. It comes at time when companies are seeing a decline in TV subscribers and profit. Sling TV is a subsidiary of DISH Network, which has about 14 million satellite TV customers.
