How will competing streamers react to Sling TV’s Pass?
How will competing streamers react to Sling TV’s Pass?
The Sling TV Pass could signal a sea change in live TV streaming.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Sling TV might be about to receive a truckload of that kind of flattery soon. Sling TV recently launched a new product that other live TV streaming services might want to copy posthaste. The streamer’s new Passes allow customers to sign up to stream starting at a rate of just $5 per day.
Sling TV Passes could be a game-changing product for the service, and might just represent a new evolution in how viewers access their favorite channels. But how will Sling TV’s biggest competitors, such as DIRECTV, Hulu + Live TV, and YouTube TV react to the launch of Sling TV Passes?
Sling TV Passes allow customers to watch the service’s Orange package for a limited time at an unusually low price. Viewers can sign up to watch Sling for one day for $5, one weekend for $10, or a full week for $15. It’s a great way for sports fans who otherwise don’t have ESPN and other major networks to watch any live events happening on that channel, without having to pay for a full month of a more expensive live TV streamer.
Businesses are notorious for doing just about anything to get ahead, and that includes adopting ideas from their biggest competitors and trying to sell similar products to their own customers. There are recent examples in the TV world; for example, DIRECTV fought long and hard in its most recent carriage dispute with Disney to win that company’s approval to use its channels in slimmed-down, genre-based channel packages that cost less than an all-in-one channel bundle.
Those unique channel packages are now available in the form of DIRECTV Genre Packs, which start at just $20 per month and often come with access to on-demand streaming services at no extra cost. That original idea is already seeing some adaptation by other streaming services — Fubo announced in August that, like DIRECTV, it would soon begin offering a sports-only channel package at a price less than its more diverse plans. That’s likely just the beginning, and I expect more services to begin offering genre-based channel plans in the future as well.
It’s the same story with Sling TV’s Passes. I fully expect to see other live TV services pick up the idea of allowing viewers to sign up for limited-time access to their platforms at a low cost. It’s an idea that customers have been anticipating for a long time, and it creates a new opportunity to generate revenue that these services simply wouldn’t have access to.
From a distributor’s perspective, Sling TV’s Passes are ideal because they don’t require the creation of a new product and all the expenses that go along with that process. There’s no need to create new channel plans; all they have to do is offer shorter subscription windows to the same plans they already have. Not only that, but they’ll also open themselves up to customers who formerly were faced with the choice of paying for a full month of service at a high price when they only wanted to watch for a day or two, or (more likely) just skipping what they wanted to watch live altogether.
To be sure, these streaming services won’t be able to just flip on access to Pass-like products like a light switch. They’ll likely have to negotiate with channel owners to be able to create such packages, and they may have to reconsider the offering of free trials, which do basically the same thing as Sling TV Passes but at a cost of $0. One of the reasons Sling TV was the perfect service to launch Passes initially is that while it often has introductory deals, they don’t include free viewing periods. That could lead to services like DIRECTV, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, and YouTube TV starting with one or two-week subscription options, rather than one to three-day options.
Sling TV Passes are an innovative idea that I think will become popular with audiences quickly. And if that’s the case, audiences can expect Sling’s biggest competitors to try and adopt the idea of Passes as quickly as they can.
Sling TV
Sling TV is The Streamable’s choice for cord-cutters on a budget. Sling is a live TV streaming service with multiple channel packages. The $45.99/month Sling Orange plan offers about 30 channels, including Disney Channel and ESPN. The $45.99/month Sling Blue plan offers about 40 channels, including ABC, Fox, and NBC in major markets.
You can combine Orange+Blue for a total of $60.99 / month. Sling also offers many channel add-on packages starting at $6/month.