Sling TV Goes Free, Offers Free On-Demand Content for Non-Subscribers
What does a company do when it's the number four contender in a three horse race? Out-innovate the competition. Sling TV is trying to shake up the streaming market by offering free premium content starting today. There are several catches here, including that (at the start) this is only available to returning customers using a Roku. So anyone who has paid for Sling TV service on a Roku device and stopped can open the app to find free on-demand video. Sling says it's offering over 100 hours of free TV show and movies, including "Wrecked," "The Detour," "Good Behavior," "Flip or Flop," and others, coming from TBS, HGTV, History, and other broadcasters. The company will open the free service up to other supported devices in the near future. While Sling TV's announcement didn’t mention it, presumably this free content is all ad-supported.
Free viewers can take advantage of several paid options while they're in the app, including getting Showtime for $10 per month. Three minor networks launch on Sling TV today—Dove Channel, Outside TV Features, and Stingray Karaoke—and all are available a la carte (the first two for $5 per month, the last for $7 per month). NBA League Pass goes for $28.99 per month. Viewers can also purchase movies from an on-demand library of over $5,000 titles.
Sling TV also noted that it's raising the price of its Orange service by $5 to $25 per month. When the tier started it had under 15 channels and today has over 30, the company says.
The Sling TV free content interface
Related Articles
Dish Network's live streaming service tackles mass personalization and aggregation in an effort to create something viewers can't get anywhere else.
24 Jan 2019
The future of TV is already happening, but it's happening at a slower rate than some would have thought. To create the future, providers need to stop living in the past.
13 Nov 2018
Many cut the cord because they didn't like the constant price increases and bloated lineups of cable. But the skinny bundles haven't learned that lesson.
03 Jul 2018
Dish has offered cross-platform addressable ad buying since 2012, and now it's adding validated third-party campaign measurement.
05 Jan 2018
From the start, CBS was the giant hole in AT&T's DirecTV Now offering. That will soon change, although only in select major cities.
07 Aug 2017
While Sling has more customers, DirecTV Now subscribers stream more hours per month. ComScore sheds light on skinny bundle viewing.
21 Jun 2017
The skinny bundle becomes a lot more useful with the addition of a 50-hour cloud DVR, but that service comes with an additional $5 monthly fee.
09 Mar 2017