Why This MattersSling TV says its a la carte approach to channel pricing and packaging gives it an edge among vMVPDs.
When Sling TV streamed onto the scene in February 2015, it was all alone, the first virtual multichannel video programming distributor to deliver a subscription package of live-TV channels that initially targeted cord-cutters and cord-nevers.
Fast-forward to today, and Sling TV's got lots of company amid the launches of OTT rivals that include PlayStation Vue, YouTube TV, fuboTV, Hulu Live, DirecTV Now and likely more to come.
Though Dish Network no longer breaks out Sling TV subscribers, the OTT service remains in the lead among its peers. According to comScore, there were 3.1 million U.S. homes taking a skinny bundle as of April 2017, with more than 2 million on board with Sling TV.
So the challenge now is how to retain and perhaps extend that lead in an increasingly crowded market of vMVPDs.
Roger Lynch, Sling TV's CEO, believes that his company's a la carte style of packaging will help it stand apart from the pack. B&C contributing editor Jeff Baumgartner recently caught up with Lynch to reflect on what's happened in the last 18 months and what else Sling TV has in store. An edited transcript follows.
Sling TV was the first virtual MVPD out of the gate when you launched in February 2015. What are the biggest lessons you've learned?
Even before that, we had almost three years of experience with the international channels with DishWorld [rebranded as Sling International in 2015]. There were a lot of lessons learned, certainly on the technology side.
For the Game of Thrones [season seven] premiere on Sunday [July 16], we saw that a number of services melted down, some that have fewer subscribers than we have, and we had a great premiere for it. But when I go back two-and-a-half years ago, we had a problem with the Game of Thrones premiere. I think that's evidence of a lesson learned. We've learned how to create a more stable and scalable service.
Two, I think back to when we launched, there was a big question in all of our minds: How big is the market opportunity? Were consumers really ready to go to live streaming? It was not obvious to consumers. It was very novel to stream a live television package. I think we caught people by surprise. I think that question has been answered pretty emphatically with the demand.
With respect to scalability and stability, what has changed to help you essentially cruise through the recent Game of Thrones season premiere?
I'm not claiming that we're perfect. We still have things that come up from time to time. But we are hitting all of our metrics - customer satisfaction, net promoter score, churn, everything. We've seen a dramatic improvement in our service.
But you build it and you test it and it goes into the real world and you find things that you thought could handle a certain amount of volume and it can't. With live streaming, there's a lot of third parties that you rely on. It's not like our [Dish Network] satellite system, where you build the satellite and you control the satellite and you control the set-top box and you have the spectrum - you have control of the end-to-end. You don't in a live-streaming service.
Part of it is that you run over the open internet and part of it is you have to rely on a lot of third parties that are integral to your system. You also find that some of them have weaknesses in their architecture and they have to be sorted out. As we look back the issues that we've had, probably half of them have been our own doing, and half of them have been third-party vendors that we work with.
From a demographic standpoint, how is your customer base breaking down compared to the early launch days and how has that changed in the last year or so?
That's actually played out pretty much how we thought it would. When we launched, we would attract early adopters, which would include cord-nevers and some cord-cutters. When you look at your target market, it doesn't mean you don't go after customers outside of that; it means you focus your efforts on that strategic target market.
At launch, it was basically males who were 25-35. They tend more likely to be early adopters and they overindex in sports, and we have a lot of sports. When we launched it was about two-thirds, and maybe it was about 70%, male.
Over time, we started to see that the percentage of males started dropping somewhat. It was still a significant majority. As we started to add more content, [we'd get more] young families with kids. And once we started to have more serious competition launching, I think that opened the market for a different kind of category of customer, which is customers who are pay TV customers who are leaving pay TV to take an OTT service.
We weren't seeing many customers beforehand who wanted that many of the add-ons, so we came out with that offer where you get the Lifestyle, Comedy, Kids and News Extras, which are $5 each and would be $20 when you put them all together, but you can get all four of those for $10 [with the promotion]. That has proven to be very popular.
You still lead with the Blue [$25 per month, which includes Fox and NBC locals and Fox and NBC regional sports nets in select markets] and Orange [$20 per month, with no local broadcast TV or regional sports nets] core packages. Do most of your customers take some sort of an add-on package?
The take rates continue to grow and grow and grow, partly because the four extras offer a really good deal. That's core to our strategy of making our service a la carte, when you can choose. If you look at our packaging versus traditional pay TV - traditional pay TV has the big, bigger, biggest bundle. And they all, as we say in the industry, nest within each other - every chann
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
Why This MattersSling TV says its a la carte approach to channel pricing and packaging gives it an edge among vMVPDs.
