
Dish Network Announces Web-Based Pay TV Offering - cjdulberger
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/business/media/dish-network-announces-web-based-pay-tv-offering.html
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jessedhillon
> _Dish executives said the new service would not cannibalize the company’s
> current business because its current offerings do not appeal to Sling TV’s
> target audience of 18- to 35-year-olds._

> _“We are not hitting the 18- to 35-year-old market today; we just aren’t,”
> Mr. Clayton said, adding that he knows from experience with five children
> between the ages of 18 and 28._

This is so refreshing to hear -- I feel that, too often, decision-makers at
big media companies resist the realization he's had.

I hope this new product is not tied to an archaic time-based schedule as well,
but rather allows viewers to watch shows on their schedule. The DVR is a stop-
gap technology between time-based broadcasting and on demand viewing of all
published content. Why should it matter if I wasn't home at 8pm on Sunday --
let me watch the program shown on the channel I paid for!

~~~
zaroth
Very true, for content that it doesn't matter if you watch live, there should
always be a streaming option. The next step is making that a de facto part of
the show production. Design it to be pulled off a shelf on-demand, because
that's how most people will be watching it.

But not quite "all published content." For live content we'll still always
have realtime broadcasts. I was just reading about LTE Broadcast which is
pretty cool. I wonder from a spectral efficiency standpoint, how does it
compare versus existing OTA broadcast technology?

~~~
Corrado
Just a clarification; I'm not sure that when they (Dish) say "streaming" they
mean on-demand streaming. So, everything will be streamed "live" and you will
still have to wait until 7:30 to watch Jeopardy or record it if you will be
out of the house. :(

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vpeters25
I've been expecting somebody to come up with this for years. I guess the HBO
streaming announcement finally opened the floodgates.

They still are bundling a package of channels, I guess wanted a-la-carte but
broadcasters would have none of that. It's probably the smallest package they
were able to negotiate.

This is basically a TV cable provider using the internet as last-mile
infrastructure. There will be lawsuits from big cable, they will lobby
regulators to impose cable service fees into them.

~~~
wmf
The Intel/Verizon OnCue project has been working on this for a few years and
Aereo is planning to offer a similar service. There was some ambiguity about
whether such services should be legally treated the same as cable/satellite
companies, but a recent FCC rule change explicitly legalized the concept.
[http://www.fcc.gov/blog/tech-transitions-video-and-
future](http://www.fcc.gov/blog/tech-transitions-video-and-future)

~~~
smtddr
Didn't Aereo go out of business? This is what I see on www.aereo.com right now
[http://i.imgur.com/d6UBCPQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/d6UBCPQ.png)

 _(SIDENOTE: Must be kinda annoying being forced out of business only to watch
the law be changed to allow said business soon after)_

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mikeryan
This wasn't Aereo's business (and yeah, they're dead).

Dish has carriage agreements and pays retransmission fee's to the networks
they carry via this service. This is directly contrary to Aereo's model. Aereo
retransmitted over-the-air broadcast tv with individual subscriber antenna's
and tried to skirt retransmission fees so they paid nothing to the content
provider (I honestly thought they should have won their case).

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JohnTHaller
It's an interesting first step, though I'd wager a huge percentage of that
$20/mo fee is just the ESPN/ESPN2 fee. ESPN commands over $5/mo per cable
subscriber even if they never watch it and you can't choose not to get ESPN on
cable (without going with an absurd super-basic package which includes no
other channels). So, you're forced to spend over $60 a year for nothing.

~~~
wmf
Given that most non-sports content is already available by the episode, maybe
people will subscribe to Sling TV _specifically to get ESPN_.

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kodablah
I wonder how much buy-in came from companies like ESPN who I feel are
supporting existing cable providers who pay ~$5 per subscriber? If I can
triple it to $60/mo and get many (all?) other sports channels, I will not
hesitate to purchase.

I also feel this will be a big boon for the satellite company whose products
were not previously available to apartment dwellers without a southern-sky
view.

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xpose2000
This is a huge first step to modern tv watching. I have DirecTV and Verizon
FiOS internet, which is something like $200 per month. I am offered no bundled
deals, so this is immensely appealing.

If they include local channels I would seriously consider giving this a try. I
also hope it comes to Fire TV.

The other questions would be what about when you miss a show? Could you watch
old episodes from the current season for free?

UPDATE: Looks like a DVR like functionality is not available yet and you can
only watch from one device at a time. [http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/05/sling-
tv/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/05/sling-tv/)

~~~
ericabiz
Local channels should be easy to get with an OTA antenna. If you live far
away, you might have to put one on your roof. If you live within city limits,
a simple wall-mounted, newer, "rabbit ears" style antenna should be plenty.

~~~
Corrado
I'm thinking of building a hardware (USB TV tuner + Raspberry Pi) and software
(Roku channel) solution that allows you to hook up an OTA antenna and stream
it to any TV on your local network.

Right now we use our Roku box pretty heavily but have to switch to OTA to
watch local stuff. Its a pain in the butt to have to switch TV inputs all the
time and requires an extra remote control. An OTA Roku channel solves the
problem of switching inputs and too many remotes. :)

~~~
pwg
Unless you really want to build your own, the HDHomeRun OTA box [1] will
already do the above, and you simply have to plug it in to your local network.

[1] [http://www.hdhomerun.com/](http://www.hdhomerun.com/)

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twoodfin
In this context, AT&T's purchase of DirecTV makes a lot more sense: A fairly
large subscriber base, some high demand exclusives (NFL Sunday Ticket). The
whole satellite thing is just an implementation detail.

If the network is neutral enough that AT&T can make more money selling you
out-of-market NFL games over your commoditized Comcast internet, they'll do
that. If not, there's still the dishes, U-Verse, and eventually enough
cellular bandwidth.

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justinsb
A great move, but I feel that the cable companies have anticipated this: TV +
Internet is basically the same price as Internet. Who is this aimed at?

~~~
ericabiz
This was true for me with Comcast when I lived in the Bay Area (in fact,
TV+Internet was about 50 cents _cheaper_ than just Internet access.) However,
it is not true for me now.

I live in Austin and have Time Warner currently. To upgrade to a TV package
that includes ESPN, Time Warner wants $39.99/mo for 12 months. They have a
"Starter TV" package at the $19.99 price point, but it doesn't include ESPN or
Food Network.

Time Warner's pricing is pretty similar to Google Fiber and AT&T's GigaPower
here in Austin. Both want $70/mo for just Internet access and $120/mo if you
want Internet + TV.

If this can come out within a year, and offer cheap options for multiple TV
sets/computers, it'll be a huge hit. Very smart on Dish's part.

~~~
justinsb
Thanks for the datapoints. I wonder whether Austin is atypical: i.e. has the
availability of Google Fiber has forced the incumbents to offer more rational
pricing?

I would hope that the future is Google Fiber + Dish TVoIP, and this is just
the first step. I'm personally not unhappy with comcast, but more competition
would be great.

~~~
ericabiz
When Google Fiber came in, all the providers started offering higher-speed
Internet access at no additional charge (I'm on 100/10 right now with Time
Warner after their latest free upgrade, for $57/month.) I haven't seen cable
packages really change, though, and there isn't much incentive given that
Google is charging $50/month for TV, as well.

AT&T Gigapower is currently available in my neighborhood, but I am holding on
to Time Warner until Google Fiber becomes available (I may rethink this if it
doesn't happen this year.)

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justhw
Here's a link for Sling TV to signup for alerts.
[http://www.sling.com/](http://www.sling.com/)

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browep
fingers crossed for linux support. This would be a great addition to my HTPC.

~~~
mikegioia
Hell, I'd take Roku or AppleTV support! Anything to get off this
Verizon/TimeWarner insanity.

~~~
unwiredben
Roku support was part of their press release. Apple TV was explicitly not
mentioned.

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girvo
Oh, I thought that something like this already existed for the US, because
we've got Foxtel Play here in Australia, and we're usually far behind
everywhere else for this sort of stuff.

I currently pay $25AUD for a small set of channels, and watch them over the
internet on my iPhone, laptop and Xbox 360. It's quite neat actually.

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jareds
When my financial situation was not as good I had internet for $50 a month
with no cable. I would have gladly paid $20 for ESPN. Now that I have Tivo I
would rather pay the $110 a month for all the cable channels instead of $70
with fewer channels and no DVR. If this had been available I may have stuck
with just internet.

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IBM
The current model of bundling channels actually works really well and all the
people going on about cutting the cord in the future will soon realize how
much its going to cost to pay for individual channels.

Regular people will find that paying for cable is the better deal and will
continue to do that.

~~~
kbenson
I think regular people may find that paying for a bundle (even if it's
delivered across the internet) is cheaper. That may or may not be cable. That
may have been your point, but I found it ambiguous enough that it was hard to
tell.

