Warner Bros. Discovery joins Disney in suing Sling TV over Passes
Warner Bros. Discovery joins Disney in suing Sling TV over Passes
Like Disney, WBD is alleging Sling TV never sought permission to place its channels in Passes.
Sling TV has managed to make quite a few giant TV programmers mad with its new Passes program. The company is selling access to its Sling Orange package for $5 per day, $10 per weekend, or $15 per week, and it continues to appear that it never ran this idea by any channel owners before bringing the product to market. Warner Bros. Discovery is the next company to signal its disapproval of Sling TV Passes and has leveled a lawsuit against the streamer as a result.
Key Details:
- No you don’t: WBD says Sling TV Passes violate existing programming agreements.
- No small selection: CNN, HGTV, TNT, and more WBD channels are available in Sling Passes.
- Disney, too: Disney is also suing Sling over the distribution of Passes.
WBD’s lawsuit says that Sling TV’s Day, Weekend, and Week Passes are a violation of its programming agreements with the live TV streaming service. Sling is currently offering access to WBD channels such as CNN, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TBS, and TNT in the Sling Orange plan.
“Programmers depend on monthly subscriptions to finance, acquire, develop, produce and program hundreds of different programs for their 24/7 network programming,” WBD said. “Allowing consumers to pick and choose individual programs or days of the week to subscribe to would make it impossible for programmers to properly plan and invest in their linear programming or monetize all the content they acquire and produce for their linear networks.”
WBD is seeking an injunction to stop the sale of Passes immediately, claiming that they’ve caused irreparable harm. Other distributors have already contacted WBD asking if they too can sell limited-time access on the scale of Passes, and their relationships with those distributors are now threatened as a result, WBD says.
Disney is also not happy about the launch of Passes, and has similarly sued Sling TV over the program. But Sling hasn’t backed down from that legal challenge yet, issuing an appeal to customers to try its Passes just days after Disney’s lawsuit was filed.
In a statement given to Deadline, Sling’s parent company EchoStar doesn’t sound as if it’s ready to back down this time either.
“Sling TV has broken the mold of expensive, rigid bundles with flexible Sling Orange Day, Weekend and Week Pass subscriptions – pay-as-you-want instant access,” the EchoStar spokesperson said. “This customer-first model challenges the old guard’s outdated pricing playbook, exposing their dependence on market power and resistance to change. With no long-term contracts and lower costs, Sling puts control back in the hands of subscribers, signaling a shift toward competition that puts consumer value ahead of monopolistic control.”
Sling clearly has programmers quite riled with its Passes, and this suit brought against it by WBD could have far more immediate consequences for customers, thanks to the request for injunctive relief. If that’s granted, Sling Passes could be discontinued immediately, and one of the most innovative products to appear from live TV streamers in a long time will evaporate.
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.