Sling TV CEO Sees Large Opportunity in Pay TV Market
Multi Stream Service
The defections from the US pay TV market has almost hit the estimated 812,000 mark in the second quarter, and CEO of Sling TV, Roger Lynch, said that the virtual MVPD service from them has broadened their focus beyond cord cutters and cord nevers. These pool of cord cutter and cord nevers were available when the Sling TV service was launched in February 2015.
“There are about 21 million homes without pay TV. Of those, 16 million are cord-nevers (people who have never signed up) and 5 million are cord-cutters. We were focused on those markets. What we’ve seen since then is a dramatic shift. Consumers are leaving traditional pay TV at much higher rates,” Lynch said. He added that they see this shift as a great opportunity for their Sling TV service.
Sling TV and Lynch has made many moves that seem to offer the existing pay TV users who are planning to ditch their service with video programming alternatives that are cheaper and comfortable.
Cord Cutters
Sling network has aggressively grown their bundle packages and they have added broadcast networks like NBC and Fox together with national sports networks like FS1 and FS2 and other regional sports channels like Pac-12 Network. Sling TV is also offering a multi-stream version that allows more than one member of the household to make use of the service, simultaneously.
There is also the national advertising campaign starring Danny Trejo that targets cable TV just like the advertisements for Dish’s traditional satellite platform. However, Lynch struck a contradictory tone while talking to media. He noted that Sling TV wants to be a piece of video services.
“Our objective has never been to be the entire video service,” Lynch said. It looks like the usage habits of the customers of Sling TV might have something to do with the CEO’s mindset. Lynch said that forty percent of the users of Sling watch it on mobile handsets.
It is true that the market objectives of Sling TV are not clearly stated, but the mindset of the programmers are certainly changing. “When we first started talking to programmers, there was skepticism,” Lynch added. “There was concern about whether it would cause cord-cutting. What’s happened since then, they’ve accepted it’s really the future of pay TV. Consumer behavior is changing.”
