They're adding a lot more than just over the air broadcast channels. For someone that likes watching live sports on occasion, this is a decent offering (the omission of TNT and TBS is odd though).
For $20/month you can get ESPN & ESPN2 and about 20 other channels (Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Discovery, History Channel are a few of the main ones I use) streamed via Sling TV. For another $5 you can add a few more Sports channels.
Personally I'm delighted to trade ABC, ESPN, etc [1] for a $15 reduction in my YouTube TV bill. It just makes me wish Google would unbundle all their different providers so I could choose only the ones I want.
[1]
Your local ABC channel, ABC News Live, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, FX, FXX, FXM, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 (by authentication to the ESPN app), ESPNU, ESPNEWS SEC Network, ACC Network.
All I want is CNBC and baseball. I can subscribe to MLB.tv which covers baseball, but as far as I can tell there is not a reasonable way to get CNBC a la carte. Paying for CNBC Pro is $30/month and that seems more than I'd like to pay.
ESPN is an outlier. Among normal mainstream cable channels, nothing else is more than $2, only a few are more than $1, and the cheap ones are $0.10 or less.
Even paying extra in lieu of bundling, prices like that could work out if you make ESPN a separate $5-10 option.
ESPN recently started letting you watch a simulcast of their cables channels if you (or say your parents) get ESPN from their Time Warner cable service. I don't know that there is any other providers signed on yet but they seem to be working on adding more. It's how I cut the cord.
Exactly. These are the live stations being dropped:
ABC
ABC News Live
Disney Channel
Disney Junior
Disney XD
ESPN
ESPN2
ESPNU
ESPNEWS
Freeform
FX
FXX
FXM
National Geographic
National Geographic Wild
SEC Network
Of those, the Disney bundle would only cover the sports channels on ESPN+ (I'm assuming it has all the cames broadcast on the channels.)
Edit: according to other comments ESPN+ doesn't even cover all the sports on the ESPN2 and ESPN3 channels.
They should let us pair up and split bundles. All I want is a package that’s all available global news, and zero sports.
Looking at the individual channel costs for cable, sports is the culprit. Over half my cable costs were subsidizing live sports, costing my provider $8 - $12 per channel, with home/garden, food, and news type channels coming in under a buck each.
It’s aggressive for streaming video packages to price near cable when not offering sports. For those who watch sports, that’s a terrible deal. For those who don’t want sports, streaming is starting to cross into charging more than cable would charge for the same not-sports channels (if they have a not-sports package). That said, if the streaming price is also “ad free” and fully time shiftable, that’s huge value. (They seem to be messing this up too, a higher percentage of shows on Hulu’s no ads keep having ads every year, now not just pre-roll, now interleaved and unskippable — TiVo can skip. Had donated TiVO Series 2 w/ 2 TB expansion to Good Will but might have to get another if this trend continues.)
After two decades of no ads (TiVo then Hulu ad free), traveling and being stuck with home or hotel cable is excruciating.
I wish Netflix could make a deal with someone like ESPN to stream sports events live. I'd gladly pay a premium to get ESPN without being forced to buy a "bundle" of channels I don't want from the cable company.
it is very hard for television providers to carry ESPN without also carrying a massive bundle of other marginally-popular ESPN channels that few people want. This is because some cable channels base their advertising rates on the number of subscribers, not the number of people watching a program
The reason you get all the ESPN "Ocho" channels is because ESPN requires cable companies to carry them in order to offer ESPN at all. Cable companies pay ESPN for the privilege.[1]
If you are on Spectrum, check out the TV Choice package as a decent option for a la carte. It's $28/mo (including the broadcast fee) on a 2-year promotion. I get all the local channels as well as 10 channels that I pick (which includes ESPN/2/FS1). They have decent app support, and while the app blocks certain channels (like ESPN) while not on the home network, the subscription allows you to use the ESPN app anywhere.
Thing is I would be delighted the the opposite. I'd love to only pay for ESPN and the other sports channels only for $15/mo. Maybe add in CNN/FOX/MSNBC/Etc. for the wife to have on in the background, but plenty of ways to get that otherwise cheaply. OTA works fine for local news, even if the apps are a bit buggy if you want anything DVR or digitally distributed.
As would likely most I believe. Thus sports propping up this ancient model and myself being part of the problem.
I'm surprised Disney/ESPN is only $15/mo of the bill to be honest, I think Youtube is taking a hit there as I'd bet it's more than half the total base subscription fee.
Yeah I cut the extended subscription last year and no longer have ESPN which I sorely miss but am living without. If I could have a-la carte channels I would definitely be back on board, as there are about half-a-dozen channels I would be willing to pay to get, without 150 other crap channels.
Without knowledge of NBC/CBS/Fox's internal balance sheets, this seems unlikely.
1. The sports networks these companies have launched are all fledgling and receive a miniscule subscriber fee relative to ESPN.
2. All 3 broadcast their games over the air. Cordcutters undercutting (ugh) ESPN's ability to bid too much on NFL rights might bring down the price for NFL games a little bit, but there's still going to be plenty of demand not tied to cable subscriptions.
https://thestreamable.com/matchmaker?channels=cnbc,espn,espn...
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