Sling TV

Sling TV, the live streaming service owned by satcaster Dish, has added two more betting information channels, one for baseball and one for hockey. The channels, which are produced in collaboration with digital gaming company DraftKings, follow a marketing agreement last month between Dish and DraftKings to bring the latter’s sportsbook and daily fantasy sports gaming features to Dish and Sling subscribers.

Sling TV, the Dish Network-owned OTT-TV service, is offering a deep one-month discount, along with access to its premium-level cloud DVR offering. Under a promotion announced Tuesday that’s a clear bid to attract new customers, Sling TV is offering the first month of service for $10 per month. It’s also including DVR Plus, a cloud DVR with 200 hours of storage that regularly sells for an additional $5 per month. The promo applies to both the Sling Orange and Sling Blue packages, which typically sell for $35 per month each. Sling TV is also bundling Orange and Blue together for $25 for the first month.

Sling TV says it will lose three NBC Sports regional sports networks on April 1 due to a carriage dispute with their owner, NBC Sports. The live streaming service says NBC Sports Washington, NBC Sports California and NBC Sports Bay Area will be removed from its lineup. Sling has carried the three channels since 2017.

With his company’s vMVPD reporting just 16,000 customer additions in the fourth quarter, the Dish chairman concedes the service should have more market share than it does.

The Uncarrier’s new pay TV service matches up against these specific incumbents well in terms price and channel selection, and executives have noticed

AMC Networks today announced a comprehensive, long-term distribution agreement with Dish Network and Sling TV that includes continued carriage of AMC Networks’ linear channels AMC, BBC America, IFC, SundanceTV, WE tv and BBC World News, as well as the launch in the coming months of AMC Networks’ targeted SVOD services Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now and Urban Movie Channel; AMC Networks’ ad-free offering AMC Premiere; and its IFC Films Unlimited streaming service.

Before Hulu was serving up network television bundles, before PS Vue had come (and recently gone), and before AT&T was pushing streaming TV, there was Sling TV. Streaming TV was in its infancy back in February of 2015 when Sling launched with a handful of offerings and a ton of promise. But even back then, you could see the potential that Sling had.

Dish Network Corp. lost more pay TV subscribers than expected and Sling TV, its streaming service, saw little growth, adding only 7,000 subscribers in the first quarter. The company’s overall pay TV business lost 259,000 subscribers on a net basis in Q1.

Dish’s Sling TV tripled its ad revenue in 2018, largely thanks to its dynamic ad insertion (DAI) business, the company says. The company did not give any specific revenue numbers around its ad sales, so it’s unclear how significant that tripling is in terms of overall revenue.

Dish Network and its virtual MVPD Sling TV are the latest to join up with Comscore’s ongoing beta trial for its new Comscore Campaign Ratings ad measurement platform. The ad inventory for both Dish and Sling TV’s live linear programming and video on-demand will be part of the beta. Dish is the first pay TV provider to join the program, and Comscore said Dish Media’s inclusion broadens the measurement to include addressable and linear ads.

The largest Spanish-language network, already buffeted by declining ratings, on Monday suffered through its third day of being blacked out on Dish Network and Sling TV. The carriage dispute is keeping Univision away from the pay TV outlets’ 13 million subscribers. Talks between the parties continue.