Sling TV News Update: DISH to Add More Network Channels, New Xbox One App, and Refreshed Add-On Packages
Sling TV, the potentially game-changing Internet TV package for cord cutters by DISH Network, just added a new platform, new extras and more content to its core package, which costs $20 per month for live streaming and on demand TV.
Sling TV on Xbox One
As I mentioned (very controversially at the time, according to PlayStation die-hards) a couple years ago, before the Xbox One launched, Microsoft's next-generation console is particularly designed with a multimedia focus, rather than only on gaming. That remains true today, as it becomes the first gaming console to support DISH's live Internet-based (over-the-top, or OTT) streaming TV service, Sling TV.
Sling TV's app for Xbox One -- which is available for download now on the Xbox One Apps Store -- works with Kinect gesture and voice controls, Xbox One's "Snap" multitasking system, and offers Live ESPN channels, along with popular networks like AMC, TNT, TBS, Adult Swim, as well as access to WatchESPN and ESPN3 on demand content right on the Xbox.
In addition, Microsoft and DISH announced that the first five thousand purchases of Xbox One at a physical Microsoft retail store or the official Microsoft store online will get three months of the $20 per month Sling TV service for free.
"Sling TV and Xbox are a natural pairing; two out of three millennials think of themselves as gamers, while nearly nine out of 10 watch live sports on TV," said Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV in a release to LatinPost. "Today's Xbox One customers have been some of the most passionate about Sling TV since the beginning, and now we're pleased to bring them live TV on their favorite gaming console."
For those who don't have an Xbox One and don't intend to get one, Sling TV is also available on Amazon's Fire TV devices, current-generation Roku devices, Android, iOS, and on Mac and PC.
Gaining Momentum: More Sling TV Content, Add-Ons Coming
When DISH announced its cheap OTT streaming TV service Sling TV earlier this year, the $20 per month core package generated a lot of buzz. Not only did it offer live streaming TV, but it came with a decent amount of great live channels, including ESPN.
Then in February, DISH announced a partnership with Univision to bring its Spanish-language network content, including the flagship network, tlnovelas, FOROtv, and Univision Deportes, to Sling TV as well. Then, a month later, in early March, DISH announced it was adding AMC and IFC, and a $5 per month add-on package called "Hollywood Extra" that included the Sundance channel and EPIX content live and on demand.
But Sling TV isn't finished expanding its library of core offerings yet, and on Tuesday announced the addition of some of A&E's most-watched properties: A&E itself, The History Channel, H2 (think: Ancient Aliens marathons), and Lifetime.
Along with those additions, another new $5 per month add-on package called "Lifestyle Extra" will include the Cooking Channel, WEtv, LMN, and truTV, the latter of which offers extra March Madness content. Another add-on called "World News Extra" will replace the give news junkies access to CNN's HLN, along with Bloomberg TV, Euro News, France 24, NDTV 24/7, and RT, among a few others.
DISH will no longer offer the "News & Info Extra" add-on, since the two new add-ons essentially split and augmented that package into the two new add-on collections.
The new content will be available to Sling TV members by the end of March, but with Sling TV gaining momentum among millennials and cord-cutters, who knows what else the service might add before the end of the year.