Sling TV
Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aims to complement subscription video on demand services for cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated services that can be streamed through smart TVs, digital media players and apps.[1][2] The service is available in the United States and Puerto Rico as of 2015.
Not to be confused with Slingbox, an unrelated product of another Dish Network subsidiary.Company type
February 9, 2015
Gary Schanman (president)
Digital video recorder (Sling AirTV)
2.12 million users (as of November 6, 2023)
Sling TV is led by Erik Carlson, who also serves as the President and COO of Dish Network. The service's precursor, the ethnic television service DishWorld, was also brought under the auspices of Sling TV LLC and was rebranded as Sling International.[3] Following an invitation-only beta launch of the service that began in January of that year, Sling TV formally launched on February 9, 2015. In August 2021, the service reached a total of 2.44 million subscribers.[4] In September 2021, Sling TV reached 2.556 million subscribers.[5] In January 2022, Sling TV reached 2.486 million subscribers down 595,000 pay TV subscriber loss from Q3 total of 2.6 million.[6]
In June 2022, Sling TV reached 2.19 million subscribers.[7] In September 2022, Sling TV had 2.41 million subscribers, up from the 2.19 million in June.[8] In December 2022, Sling TV had 2.3 million subscribers.[9] In March 2023, Sling TV had 2.10 million subscribers, down from 2.334 million subscribers at the end of 2022.[10] In July 2023, Sling TV reached 2 million subscribers.[11] As of November 2023, Sling TV has 2.12 million subscribers. [12]
Reception[edit]
Sling TV was named the CES 2015 "Best Home Theater Product", "Best Software/App", and "Best in Show" by Engadget, for its clear goal and pricing, its "intuitive, user-friendly and surprisingly well-done" interface, and the fact that the service "may very well be the beginning of the end for traditional pay TV" in the United States.[84]
Some broadcasters have been hesitant about over-the-top services such as Sling TV, showing concern that they may undermine their carriage deals with larger conventional cable, satellite and Internet TV providers. Time Warner initially noted that the carriage of its channels on the service was only for a "trial" basis, while both Time Warner's CEO Jeffrey Bewkes and an analyst from investment firm Macquarie Capital claimed that current contract language in Dish's OTT carriage deals with the service's content distributors would cap the number of subscribers that the service is allowed to have at any given time to 5 million. Neither Dish Network or its content providers have confirmed any such cap.[22][23][85]
On April 4, 2015, some Sling TV users were affected by brief outages preventing them from streaming portions of TBS' coverage of an NCAA Final Four game between the Duke Blue Devils and Michigan State Spartans, prompting criticism of the service's technical issues over social media. On April 6, 2015, Sling TV said that the errors, which affected between 1,000 and 2,000 users, were the result of network server failures caused by high volumes of subscriber traffic (including by new users that signed up in time for the Final Four), explaining that "while the viewing experience was spot on for the vast majority our customers, we were able to rebalance traffic loads for those who were affected [through traffic redirection to a different network provider] and improve the experience for the remainder of the evening." Roger Lynch later stated that the service would limit future outages by upgrading its software to automatically switch from the main to a backup provider during spikes in streaming demand.[86][87][88]
In July 2015, Sling TV accused NBC Owned Television Stations, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal unit, of refusing to air advertising for the service on NBC owned-and-operated stations in major markets as a form of protectionism. CEO Roger Lynch stated that "Comcast has a demonstrated history of shutting down ideas it doesn't like or understand, predictably to its benefit and at the expense of consumers."[89]