For well over four month’s cord cutter’s nationwide have been waiting for Dish Network’s online television package, Sling TV, and Monday, it made it formal debut complete with additions to its previously announced lineup.
The offering is the most expensive thus far but it does offer live TV which does set it aside from Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime Streaming Video who now have the lions share of the streaming video market.
At $20-a-month Sling TV offers ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, Adult Swim, AMC, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, ABC Family, CNN, El Rey and Galavision. Consumers also gain access to Sling TV’s video-on-demand library.
As expected Sling TV offers subscribers a total of three add-on packages, each for $5 more a month — Kids Extra, News and Info Extra, and Sports Extra.
Kids programming includes: Disney Junior, Disney XD, Boomerang, Baby TV, and Duck TV. For those craving news and information, they offer, HLN, Cooking Channel, DIY and Bloomberg TV. I am not sure that is really much of a news offering when there are plenty of free news apps that are better.
The sports package is a bit better offering the SEC Network, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Bases Loaded, Univision Deportes, Universal Sports and beIN Sports.
Streaming devices that work with Sling TV include Roku, Android, iOS, Mac and PC, and soon it will support Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. You also watch it on your tablets and smartphones without any problems.
Right now the big draw is access to ESPN having access to the network without a cable subscription has been something many cord cutters have been waiting for a long time to see. The NBA on TNT and Major League Baseball on TBS are also good adds for Sling along with March Madness.
Dish Network is now second in the market of big players offering OTT cloud-based TV service. CBS All Access started up late last year for $5.99 a month. Time Warner’s HBO and Sony Entertainment are also prepping new services for a roll out expected this summer or fall as the OTT world continues to grow.
