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Television The Internet

Dish Introduces $20-a-Month Streaming-TV Service 196

wyattstorch516 writes "Dish Networks has unveiled Sling TV, its streaming service for customers who don't want to subscribe to Cable or Satellite. From the article: "For $20 a month — yes, twenty dollars — you get access to a lineup of cable networks that includes TNT, TBS, CNN, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, the Disney Channel, ESPN, and ESPN2. ESPN is obviously a huge get for Dish and could earn Sling TV plenty of customers all on its own. ESPN just ended another year as TV's leading cable network, and now you won't need a traditional cable package to watch it. For sports fanatics, that could prove enticing. But Dish has hinted that there may be limits on watching ESPN on mobile thanks to red tape from existing deals between the network and Verizon."
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Dish Introduces $20-a-Month Streaming-TV Service

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  • by The New Guy 2.0 ( 3497907 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:32PM (#48741299)

    Isn't "Sling" somebody else's trademark for a like product?

    • Re:Trademark foul... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cashman73 ( 855518 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:38PM (#48741361) Journal
      The Sling trademark is owned by Dish's former parent company Echostar. Dish network's new offering, Sling TV (announced today), is a new service being offered -- it is not being offered under the Dish Network brand, but as its own product.
    • by xeoron ( 639412 )
      Reminds me of the Sling Box, which does the same thing for all channels at no monthly cost, will stream to all devices locally or internationally, comes with Chromecast, Roku, AmazonFire support and has a built-in dvr. How is this Sling TV better?
      • by cdrudge ( 68377 )

        Because in order to use a Sling Box to stream those channels, you need to have a cable/satellite service to provide the content. This service streams the channels so you don't have to subscribe to a traditional cable or satellite provider at a rate most likely higher than $20 a month.

        It's possible that this service isn't better than other options for some viewers. It may be exactly what others are looking for. It's never a bad thing to have multiple options, especially in an sector that's typically a mono

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:34PM (#48741321)

    To say goodbye to Comcast. I have been caught with the problem of family members who wanted those certain networks.

    Now...bwahahaha.

    • Isn't this thing kind of like Netflix, but worse and more expensive?

      • Except that it has current content, which Netflix does not have. But the content this new service has is only a few channels. Yes they're popular channels, but I don't want any of them myself.

        The problem is that $20 is too much for a single channel, so if you have 5 shows you like to watch and they're all part of different bundles then you end up paying more than you would with cable potentially. Netflix has a good price point; cheap enough that you put up with the few things you can't get and the fact t

        • Netflix has a good price point; cheap enough that you put up with the few things you can't get and the fact that some stuff is a year old

          But, if you are *only* watching Netflix, as things come down the pipe, they are new to you...so, does it really make a difference?

          I rarely go see a movie in a theater upon release. I wait until they come out on bluray or netflix, so they are new to me, although they have been out for awhile previously.

          I've never understood people that have to see it first thing as it is

        • It's a separate service. You don't need Dish. "It will include television programming and sports events from Walt Disney's ABC, ESPN and Maker Studios, Time Warner's TNT, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, and Food Network, HGTV and Travel Channel." http://boxingdispatch.com/sci-... [boxingdispatch.com]

          That's a pretty good deal since you are being raped on programming costs from cable or fios.
  • by toonces33 ( 841696 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:38PM (#48741355)

    I for one resent paying for very expensive programming that I never watch.

    • by mythosaz ( 572040 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:44PM (#48741405)

      I understand your desire for a la carte programming, but live sports is what stops a *lot* of people from cutting the cord and just going to Hulu, Netflix, Prime, or SomeOtherService.

      Getting ESPN is a Big Hairy Deal for cord cutters, and it's the title of the article. Your only other option was to hope that your cable provider let you tune into ESPNU or similar from your IP range...or to pirate your college sports.

      You can think of this as ESPN is $20 a la carte, and includes some free channels with it :)

      • is Hulu is missing most if not all of the drama shows my kid watches. I couldn't care less about sports. But her not having TV made her stand out around her friends as weird. TV is a very social thing for girls.
    • It would probably be about $10/month. ESPN is the most expensive channel to license for cable providers.

    • Al-a-cart is currently illegal due to the structuring content providers talked the FCC into years ago. It's a very complicated topic but basically the production people like Viacom have pushed the line so far that most TV is complete and utter garbage today and is why your cable bill can exceed $200/month easily. It's so far beyond reasonable you now have cable and satalite providers actually dropping entire networks. Dish, for example currently doesn't have any of Fox and is just displaying a banner "Fox r

      • Not Illegal (Score:4, Informative)

        by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Monday January 05, 2015 @07:34PM (#48741771) Homepage Journal

        From the FCC:
        Are cable systems required to offer "a la carte" and pay-per-view channels?

        No, but they may choose to offer channels on a stand-alone basis ("a la carte") or as a pay-per-view channel. Commission rules also prohibit cable systems from requiring customers to subscribe to any tiers beyond the basic tier in order to have access to a la carte channels or pay-per-view channels offered by the system.

        'Out your ass' is not a legitimate source.

      • by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @07:48PM (#48741895)

        Al-a-cart is currently illegal due to the structuring content providers talked the FCC into years ago.

        A la carte is now and always has been legal. The cable providers don't offer it because they sign contracts with the content owners which make it unprofitable (they can provide channels a la carte, but if someone picks Disney Kids, the cable company must pay Disney for ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN West, ESPN 7, etc. But there's nothing legally or contractually preventing the cable company from selling Disney Kids a la carte. It's a financial model problem, not a legal or contractual one.

        • by rahvin112 ( 446269 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @08:26PM (#48742133)

          Arguing that the contract requires they purchase unrelated channels to get a single channel is not contract related is a bunch of horseshit. It IS a contractual problem, because the content providers refuse to sell channels outside bundles which essentially forces bundling on the provider.

          Personally I believe this is a regulatory action the government should take, they should make it illegal to force bundle channels to providers and require that they sell channels to all providers on equal terms and without bias. There should be a cost to that government granted monopoly and one of them should be that they can't discriminate against delivery methods or require the purchase of entire channel catalogs to get a single channel. We've given these companies the ability to destroy competing delivery services which has resulted in monopoly collusion between content creators and distributors. This monopoly should be broken, and laws should be passed to prevent it from ever happening again.

          I personally don't believe distribution companies (ie cable & sat companies, netflix, etc) should be able to own content and that allowing that to happen has resulted in a significant portion of the last decades price increases for content.

          • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            It's a commercial problem, not a contractual one. They are allowed to sell them one at a time, by the contract. Thus, the contract doesn't prevent the practice. But the commercial terms (a separate issue, though included in the contract) make it uneconomical to do it.

            Also, separate is the rumour (or threats) that if a cable company were to successfully a la carte channels, the content owners would refuse to sell them content on the next contract renewal. Though in practice, that's never been tested.
            • by adolf ( 21054 )

              I don't know what "a commercial problem" is. Is it about advertising? Because I've never encountered "a commercial problem," as far as I know.

      • which means ESPN is forcing Dish to broadcast its old channels in the old tiered system... and not allowing them to show ESPN (For $7/month or whatever) without also including ESPN Classic at the very same price in the same tier

        And you forgot that non-sports watchers have to have both channels just to get access to the Disney Channel.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      How much without ESPN? How much with BBC America? That is, BBC America without 30 minutes of commercials in a 60 minute program? Because I am paying for it.

      I really just want A La Carte. Tell me what each "channel" costs and let me pick the ones I want. I might even end up paying more than $20. And I won't pay for my local channels, I can get those OTA for free already; and better quality in most cases than what cable or satellite will deliver to boot.

      • I sort of want something in the middle. A sort of Chinese restaurant menu choice. 3 channels from column A, 3 from column B, option to substitute steamed rice for fried rice.

        Problem is that services today that give you just one episode of a show you may have missed are too expensive, and the price for a "season" of a show are also too expensive. Especially if the show was originally broadcast over the air. Plus there must be a DVR option of some sort if the shows are going to vanish after a short period

        • say I want Doctor Who, Walking Dead, Big Bang Theory, and Phineus and Ferb, and each of those requires a separate subscription of $10-20, then I end up paying more than what I did when I was a satellite subscriber.

          I think iTunes already does this for many shows. You can buy a season bundle (works out to over $2/episode) and get access to the episodes as they air.

    • by borcharc ( 56372 ) * on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:50PM (#48741443)

      I will sign up for any option that lets me not pay for sports. fuck the sports tax.

      • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        I would imagine ESPN is charging Dish at LEAST $20/mo per subscriber, and Dish is willing to eat that as a cost of being first out of the gate for internet ESPN cord cutter subscribers. The rest is free, really.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • What is so interesting about this netflix, hulu, and the like is that the customer is no longer paying for the delivery of the goods :: just the goods themselves. This is hugely beneficial to the the content provider and gives customers who are voting with their dollars more power: if comcast throttles netflix (like verizon did, or whoever did against twitch (i forget who that was) we are going to hear about those nefarious business practices pretty quickly. I, for one, welcome our new assembly line TV ove
    • What is so interesting about this netflix, hulu, and the like is that the customer is no longer paying for the delivery of the goods :: just the goods themselves.

      What do you mean? Netflix and Hulu give away free broadband ISP connectivity to their customers? And Netflix and Hulu have free massive pipelines and distributed hosting to the internet? Man, that's pretty cool. Just because Netflix doesn't directly own the wires between the content and your house like ye olde cable companies doesn't mean that the customer is not paying for the delivery of the goods.

      • by unrtst ( 777550 )

        I'm pretty sure he meant that the customer isn't paying one lump sum to one company for both the delivery of goods and for the goods themselves.

        One of the arguments that often comes up over cable prices is that they have to pay to put all the cables in place and maintain them. For satellite, they had to pay boatloads to put a satellite in orbit. This makes somewhat of a separation between the two.

        I'm pretty confused about why Dish would be the one doing this though. Adding dish subscribers doesn't cost them

        • I'm pretty sure he meant that the customer isn't paying one lump sum to one company for both the delivery of goods and for the goods themselves.

          One of the arguments that often comes up over cable prices is that they have to pay to put all the cables in place and maintain them. For satellite, they had to pay boatloads to put a satellite in orbit. This makes somewhat of a separation between the two.

          I'm pretty confused about why Dish would be the one doing this though. Adding dish subscribers doesn't cost them anything really (past licensing fees)... why not just lower the cost of that? I know its quite different but, if anything, the steaming service is more flexible and will cost them more for the delivery. The licensing rules/laws/agreements must be super fucked up.

          Building and launching a satellite is a billion-dollar capital cost, that has to be amortized over the life of the satellite. For the same money over the next few years, they can gradually roll out a streaming service without having to put up all that capital in one chunk. Plus, if they stop using satellites, they can knock out the people pirating their signal.

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      "..customer is no longer paying for the delivery of the goods.."
      yes we are. We pay for them to have an internet service, a website, and everything else you need to deliver the goods.

  • I wholeheartedly approve of it.

  • ESPN (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Maltheus ( 248271 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:54PM (#48741475)

    ESPN is the reason I cancelled Dish in the first place. It's the most costly channel in their lineup and I got sick of subsizing it. Had they chosen better, cheaper channels, I would have considered it.

    • In which we are once again reminded how much the Slashdot demographic differs from the rest of the populace.
      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        If I were genuinely interested in a sport, I would want something dedicated to that sport/league and not run through the filter of some other middle man. "but sports" is a poor reason to put up with ESPN. It's time that this stuff got decoupled from monopolistic middle men.

        Besides. A lot of "event sports" is shown on OTA broadcast anyways.

        Again, the value of cable for "but sports" goes way beyond putting up with ESPN as a monopolistic middle man. Unfettered on demand streaming has even more potential for sp

  • It is only so good as I can cancel at anytime. Else, it is the same Dish that I would get at the same price I would pay for actually having it via satellite (with a 2 year contract).
    • TFA clearly states that there will be no contract and service will be offered on a month to month basis.
  • commercials = FAIL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @07:13PM (#48741607)

    Total FAIL. It is streaming only, no DVR. That means you will happily be forced to watch commercials. I wouldn't even take the service if it were free.

  • without ESPN? Please? It's really for people who like to here other people spout shit they tried really hard to fill time with. It's actual information can be smmed up in a website. I don't know why I need to subsidize a profit making network.

    Of course, I have no idea why people tune in to here athletes talk.

    Hey, football fans! This is what the QB is going to say:
    If it was a hard game or loss, he will take the blame.
    If it is a win, he will praise the line.

    • by PRMan ( 959735 )
      Yeah. You can get Netflix and Hulu Plus for $16 / month. You can even add CBS for a few dollars more. Tons to watch. No ESPN (OK, they do have about 1,000 30 for 30 episodes, but some of those are really good even if you're not into sports that much.)
    • by AK Marc ( 707885 )

      without ESPN?

      Yes. Hulu.

      • Every time I look at things like Hulu I find virtually none of the programs that I typically like to watch. News? Nada. Have to stream it elsewhere if I can find it. Various Discovery/Science/History channels? Nothing that I want to watch. Documentaries? Minimal, and nothing of interest. Shows like Stewart/Colbert? Nope - have to go directly to comedycentral to get that.

        Here is what I don't watch. Movies, sitcoms, reality TV, cop/csi or any other drama. Don't watch sports, don't watch home shoppi

  • More commercials (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Not paying to watch commercials, sorry.

  • Imagine a world where the cable company bought all the restaurant chains. Meals are no longer for sale! If you want to eat dinner at Chili's, just sign up for an expensive monthly service providing all-you-can-eat food at 37 chains all around town.

    What's that, you only want to eat out occasionally at one or two restaurants? That's your choice but the price is the same.

    Oh, did I mention that each meal will be interrupted 2-3 times for several minutes of pitches from various unrelated businesses? Don't worry,

  • by bobjr94 ( 1120555 ) on Tuesday January 06, 2015 @02:17AM (#48743689) Homepage
    then get a lower rate ? Ive read espn is the most expensive basic channel to carry, I havent watched it for years (ever ?) along with 80% of the other channels.
  • Hmm? One of the things I've never actually managed to understand is, why do people want to pay for access to up to hundreds of tv channels, all showing near-identical programmes, none of which are really worth your time, and of which you are only ever going to watch a few any way? Perhaps I see it this way because I live in UK, where I can see some 5 - 10 actual tv channels on FreeView, and still only manage to find between 0 and 1 at any time that I want to watch. I have no need for chat shows, reality tv,

  • HA! I'm an avid sports non-fan. Years back, when they were starting to roll out cable TV service in Houston, they actually had door to door salespeople going around to sign people up. The packages available were clearly designed to extort as much money from the customers as possible. With that goal in mind, the service tiers that included ESPN and other sports channels were really expensive. I selected one of the less expensive service offerings, as I'd rather go to the dentist than watch a stick and ball g

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