There are about 500K PlayStation Vue subscribers up for grabs, as Sony shut down the once pioneering streaming TV service yesterday. Sling and others are pursuing these streaming subscribers and Sling enlisted an old, yet very familiar brand to do it.
Sling, the streaming video service from Dish, announced some new deals in this effort, including a Blockbuster Video tie in, offering a “Free Friday Movie Night.” The old video icon dominated the home video rental business before Netflix, through its DVD by mail service, and video-on-demand from video operators killed it. A key promotion for Blockbuster was the Friday night movie experience to lure people into its stores.
Sling’s “Flashback Friday” movie offer will provide free movie streaming of select titles, starting today January 31st, and will run through February. The pursuit of PlayStation Vue subscribers includes a lot more though.
Sling is offering a “buffet” of deals to new streaming subscribers. New subscribers can choose one of the following deals:
- $10 off first month of Sling Orange, Sling Blue or Sling Orange + Blue
- Free Amazon Fire TV stick ($39.99 value) with a prepaid subscription for two months of Sling TV
- Free OTA antenna ($44.95 value) with a prepaid subscription for two months of Sling TV
- Free AirTV Mini ($79.99 value) with a prepaid subscription for two months of Sling TV
- Get an AirTV Mini, AirTV 2 and OTA antenna for only $99 ($225 value) with a prepaid subscription for three months of Sling TV
Sling competitor YouTube TV has a leg up in this pursuit, given PlayStation Vue subscribers were referred to YouTube TV as a replacement to its shuttered service.
PlayStation Vue fell victim to the cutthroat competitive environment of streaming live TV, with so many options now available to subscribers that the service couldn’t build up a large enough subscriber base to make the business work.
Streaming services are finding high content costs just as challenging to their business model as traditional pay-TV providers have found for years. PlayStation Vue won’t be alone in closing down, as other streaming live TV services are probably likely to join them.
