The deal will cover the carriage of CBS-owned stations and affiliates along with Showtime, CBS Sports Network, CBSN and Pop.
On Friday night, PlayStation Vue started to notify subscribers that Tribune’s Fox affiliates were being dropped from the OTT service after failing to “come to an agreement on terms” with the station group.
Poking its head out to fire a round in the superheated battle for virtual MVPD bundle supremacy, Sony has announced that its PlayStation Vue service has added nearly a dozen Fox and NBC affiliates as well as Hallmark channels.
Everyone in the tech industry wants your eyeballs. More specifically, a growing number of tech companies want to attract the millions who have ditched cable for services that stream live TV channels over the internet. To help you see which, if any, make sense for you, Business Insider has broken down the big five live-TV streaming services you can choose from today: PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV.
Exclusives
As more and more new platforms emerge, the importance of user data grows in guiding programming and advertising strategies.
From the beginning of 2017 through April 5, according to iSpot.tv, Hulu has spent $38.3 million in national TV advertising — more than double the $16.2 million it spent over the same time period a year ago. PlayStation Vue has seen its media spend triple this year so far — $37.6 million versus $11.1 million in 2016. Big TV broadcast network spending is generally up as well.
YouTube announced its long-rumored YouTube TV service last week, plunging the online video platform into the competitive world of live TV streaming. The biggest challengers — DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue and Sling TV — offer many similar features to YouTube TV, and that will undoubtedly make it difficult for aspiring cord-cutters to know if they should wait for YouTube’s service or take the plunge now. Here’s a breakdown of these four streaming services.
The OTT Skinny: Good For Affils, If Money Is
It’s in the network affiliates’ interest to nurture some of these new skinny bundles by supplying them with their signals, even if it is on terms dictated by their networks. It’s a hedge against cord cutting and it’s another avenue into the OTT and mobile world where younger audiences await. Here’s the caveat: the affiliates’ revenue from the OTT providers — their end of whatever the networks negotiate — must be comparable to the net retrans they are getting from cable and satellite.
PlayStation Vue’s streaming service, which had been limited to major cities during its first year, will start at $30 a month in the new regions. That’s $10 cheaper than current packages, but it won’t include over-the-air channels, such as stations for ABC and Fox. Vue’s seven older markets — big cities including New York City and San Francisco — won’t have access to the new, cheaper deal.
Traditional cable providers are launching TV packages that don’t require cable boxes — good for you because you save on monthly equipment fees and don’t need a technician to come install it for you. Here’s a breakdown of what’s good and what’s not:
Dish’s Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue paved the way with innovative online services nearly a year ago. Last fall, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and its buyer-in-waiting, Charter Communications, followed suit with their own online bundles. These now represent the latest gambit from the quasi-monopolistic cable industry, which continues to shed TV customers as more people watch online video from a variety of new outlets.
Disney and ESPN Media Networks and Sony Network Entertainment International on Thursday unveiled an agreement to bring Disney’s TV networks to PlayStation Vue, Sony’s cloud-based TV service. Disney will offer ESPN, ABC-owned local stations, Disney Channel, ABC Family, which will become Freeform in January, and other networks on PlayStation Vue. In addition, local ABC affiliates will also have the opportunity to opt in to the PlayStation Vue service with their respective live linear programming.
Sony on Wednesday launched PlayStation Vue in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. Starting at $49.99 a month, the service offers more than 50 channels, including local CBS, Fox and NBC signals, and cable channels such as USA, TBS, Fox News and Discovery. Special features include the availability of the past three days of popular programming and personalization features based on a user’s viewing habits.
Named PlayStation Vue, the cloud-based TV service will be accessible via PlayStation gaming consoles and given a soft invitation-only beta launch from this month in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. A wider commercial launch is anticipated in the first quarter of 2015.
