CES 2015: Dish Network Unveils Sling TV, a Streaming Service to Rival Cable – With ESPN!
Dish Network, the satellite provider, is trying to lure younger viewers back to paying for television with the start of a web-based offering that includes ESPN and a number of other popular networks for $20 a month, about a fifth the cost of the average household bill for cable and satellite service.
Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday, the new service is called Sling TV, and provides live and on-demand television delivered via an Internet connection to television sets, computers and mobile devices.
Dish executives said that the service was cheaper and more convenient than traditional cable service. And they boasted that it delivered more choices for viewers looking to pay for a slimmed-down group of television networks and programs they want to watch, as well as more options as to when, where and how they want to watch them.
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“It is the launch of a whole new industry here,” Joseph Clayton, Dish’s chief executive, said in an interview. “We are innovators. We are disrupters. We don’t always make people happy because we challenge the status quo.”
Sling TV is part of a growing wave of offerings expected from tech, telecom and media companies in the coming year, posing a threat to the established television business, which takes in $170 billion a year. Meanwhile, the streaming outlets of Amazon, Hulu and Netflix continue to pour resources into developing more robust offerings. Sony, CBS and HBO and others are starting Internet-only subscription offerings.
The companies are trying stay relevant in the face of growing numbers of so-called cord-cutters, who have canceled their cable or satellite packages in favor of cheaper streaming alternatives, and “cord nevers,” who have never paid for a traditional cable service. The number of American households that pay for broadband service but not television increased 16 percent, to 10.6 million, in 2014, from 9.2 million in 2012, according to SNL Kagan.
Viewers are also spending more time watching streaming video. Roku, which sells popular streaming devices, said more than three billion hours of content were streamed using its devices in 2014, nearly double the amount in 2013.
Dish executives said the new service would not cannibalize the company’s current business because its current offerings do not appeal to Sling TV’s target audience of 18- to 35-year-olds.
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