In their Q1 2020 earnings report today, Dish announced their live streaming service, Sling TV, lost 281,000 subscribers, just the second recorded loss since the service launched in 2015. Sling TV is now down to 2.311 million subscribers after two consecutive quarters of losses — and reaching 2.69 million subscribers in the third quarter last year.
In December, Sling TV increased the priceof their Sling Blue and Sling Orange plans to $30 just before the end of the year. This was the first time Sling increased the price of Sling Blue and the first increase to Sling Orange since June 2018 (from $20 a month).
For those with Sling Blue, while the service is still without Fox Regional Sports Networks, Sling added Fox News, MSNBC and HLN as part of the $30 plan. However, leaving the plan were FS2 (moved to Sling Blue Sports Extra), FXX (moved to Sling Blue Hollywood Extra) and Nat Geo Wild (moved to Sling Blue Heartland Extra). FOX Business Network can also be added to Sling Blue’s News Extra.
Sling TV also added 10 hours of DVR space for all Sling Blue and Sling Orange customers.
Sling TV is still the second largest vMVPD, coming behind Hulu Live TV, which is at 3.3 million subscribers. The service maintains a slight bump over YouTube TV, which recently surpassed 2 million users. Sling TV also remains ahead of AT&T TV NOW, which lost an additional 219,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter (leaving them with 788,000), while fuboTV was at 316,000 at the end of the year.