Dish Launches Advanced DVR And Sling TV Gets A Makeover: Is The Company Ready To Fight The Media War?
On January 5, Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH) unveiled the next generation of its home DVR, the Hopper 3. The recorder features 4K content options, a sports bar mode, and 16 tuners – which according to the company is more than any other DVR in the world. The company also announced the launch of HooperGo, a personal mobile video drive for viewing DVR-recorded content on the move. [1] In parallel, Dish also introduced the refreshed interface of its streaming service, Sling TV, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. As part of the makeover, Sling TV’s menu system has been overhauled, and it will also show recommendations based on users’ viewing habits. [2] We believe that, as Dish loses subscribers to the cord-cutting trend, the company is trying to attract subscribers to its Pay TV network by offering better quality of services via the advanced DVR. At the same time, through Sling TV, the company is trying to capture users migrating to the alternative streaming media, in an attempt to keep its total subscriber loss to the minimum.
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While Pay-TV networks are losing customers to alternative streaming media, Dish’s streaming platform Sling TV faces similar competition from established players such as Netflix and Hulu. If Sling is unable to grab market share from the existing alternative streaming players, it can cannibalize Dish’s business. While the company does not report Sling TV’s subscribers separately, its subscriber losses have shown a declining trend after the launch of Sling TV in January 2015.
Although Dish has managed to reduce its subscriber losses after the launch of Sling TV, through the launch of an advanced DVR, the company appears to be trying to provide a better price/performance proposition for its Pay TV users. Its Hopper 3 DVR is powered by the fastest set-top-box processor available, the Broadcom 7445, making it seven times faster than the previous version, Hopper 2. The company also plans to launch YouTube on Hopper 3 in the next few months to make it a one-stop source for popular content. These improvements should give the company a competitive edge and attract subscribers to its network.
While Dish does not report Sling TV’s numbers separately, estimates put its subscribers at around 500,000, [3] which is not a very sizable number. As a comparison, even though both companies have different offerings, the established streaming player Netflix added more than 2 million subscribers in Q3 2015. While Sling TV is aimed towards “cord nevers,” people who do not want to take a cable connection, issues such as inability to watch it on multiple screens appear to be affecting its growth. While Dish seems to be focused on improving Sling TV’s image, it is also improving its Pay TV offerings to attract and retain consumers, which appears to be the right strategy for the company.
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- Company Release, January 5, 2016 [↩]
- Dish gives Sling a makeover to compete with Hulu and Netflix, Bloomberg Business, January 6, 2016 [↩]
- Sling TV suppliers say the company has less than 500,000 subscribers, decelerating signups, Streamingmedia Blog, December 2015 [↩]