Sling TV

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
The times, they are a changin'....

Lots of people say they want to ditch cable TV for the Web, but can’t because they want to watch sports — specifically the stuff on ESPN, which has a hammerlock on much of the sports world.


Now they will finally get a chance: Dish’s new Web-TV service, which the company is formally announcing today, lets you stream ESPN, over the Web, for $20 a month.

Dish’s “Sling TV”* offering, which the company says will launch “soon,” also comes with 10 other non-ESPN channels, including the Food Network, CNN and the Travel Channel, and the ability to add more networks for additional fees.

But it’s very unlikely that you’re going to sign up for Sling TV because you want to stream Wolf Blitzer or “Chopped” to your iPad. If you get it, it’s because you want to see stuff like the College Football Championship, which is going to air next week exclusively on ESPN.

Put it another way: If ESPN wasn’t in this package, do you think Dish would be trying to sell it?

So to review: This is the year that you’ll be able to get HBO on the Web, without paying for any other cable channels, and ESPN on the Web, with just a handful of other channels. Throw in a Netflix subscription and you’re probably looking at a $50-a-month video package (you’ll still need to pay for broadband on top of that) that might please a lot of people — that is, people who want to watch cable-TV programming but don’t want to sign up for traditional cable-TV bundles.
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I'm killing cable next week. I'm paying about $175 for TV & internet, but I'm getting a new ISP, which will be faster than TWC. Between that and ditching TWC altogether, I'll be saving about $100/month, and I'll have faster internet.

Plus, with Netflix, no commercials to deal with.

I'm going to have to figure out how to watch The Daily Show, but aside from that I have no worries.

 
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Always said if I could find out how to watch live sports, I wouldn't need cable. Getting close. Agree with Rolin'Rock that I'd probably have to have BTN now.

 
Twenty bucks is still too rich for my blood just for regular ESPN. If I could get all the college football channels I might consider 20 bucks but it's not that important to me.

 
irafreak said:
Twenty bucks is still too rich for my blood just for regular ESPN. If I could get all the college football channels I might consider 20 bucks but it's not that important to me.
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Don't look at it as "how many channels do I get", but "how many channels do I actually watch".... I think it's a fine deal... BUT, No B1G Network.

 
Right now I pay something like $80 for cable alone. I get upwards of 200 channels for that, including 15-20 sports channels. Give me ALL sports channels, including ESPN, BTN, FOX, TBS, etc, and I'll pay $20/month. But for ESPN alone, it isn't worth it.

 
I have too many shows I like to watch, but many of them are on network TV.. only a few cable shows I watch...

I am in a tough spot.. want to ditch cable, but I am scared, guys... really scared to do it.

Plus i love watching local sports on FSN.

 
It's a good step. BTN is a stumbling block, plus I liked having some of the Fox regional games. Also, my Dish receiver has TV1 and TV2 so I can send different video to 2 different TVs and watch 2 games at once. Also my internet speed can drop a lot at busy times so I'd be worried about games cutting out on me. Watching this, but probably won't pull the plug yet.

 
knapplc said:
I'm going to have to figure out how to watch The Daily Show, but aside from that I have no worries.
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I think you can watch full episodes on Comedy Central's website

I think we pay like $120 for cable + Internet. Sadly I watch way too many sports on way too many channels and I don't want to give that up. If it wasn't for sports I'd be fine - I rarely watch anything else

 
tschu said:
knapplc said:
I'm going to have to figure out how to watch The Daily Show, but aside from that I have no worries.
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I think you can watch full episodes on Comedy Central's website

I think we pay like $120 for cable + Internet. Sadly I watch way too many sports on way too many channels and I don't want to give that up. If it wasn't for sports I'd be fine - I rarely watch anything else
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I'm in the same boat. I would be willing to buy a streaming only package from someone for all my football, but that does not seem likely to happen as long as sub fees are how the nets are making money.

A side note is there are still a number of tech issues with streaming only, like ESPN3 was down for parts of the first round CFB playoffs. Or HBOGO crashing on Game of Thrones premier, and True Detective's finale.

 
Has anyone actually tried this? My father-in-law gave me an invite for it. Can't tell if it's in trial/beta or just a marketing ploy. At first I thought it was related to Slingbox's SlingTV product but sadly, it's not.

 
strigori said:
tschu said:
knapplc said:
I'm going to have to figure out how to watch The Daily Show, but aside from that I have no worries.
Click to expand...
I think you can watch full episodes on Comedy Central's website

I think we pay like $120 for cable + Internet. Sadly I watch way too many sports on way too many channels and I don't want to give that up. If it wasn't for sports I'd be fine - I rarely watch anything else
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I'm in the same boat. I would be willing to buy a streaming only package from someone for all my football, but that does not seem likely to happen as long as sub fees are how the nets are making money.
A side note is there are still a number of tech issues with streaming only, like ESPN3 was down for parts of the first round CFB playoffs. Or HBOGO crashing on Game of Thrones premier, and True Detective's finale.
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ESPN is going to provide a streaming only subscription plan later this year for all of their channels. All of them, from ESPN to ESPN 8: The Ocho.

NPR ran a story on it alongside a piece about the importance of HBO offering a streaming only subscription option this Spring. I'll see if I can find/ link.

 
Live sports is why I'm still subscribed to cable. Between streaming services, etc I think the rest would be covered. Damn it.

 
Yep, live sports is the only problem. For major sporting events, getting HD streams has not been a problem. For NCAA/BTN content, it's tougher. Been able to cut the cord on most of my TV's local/regional live sports is the last hurdle
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