Streaming live TV has become really popular within the last few years with competitors such as Sling, PlayStation Vue, Hulu TV, and YouTube TV saturating the market. T-Mobile is expected to launch its own service sometime this year, but says they don’t want to offer a “skinny bundle”, and will instead focus on an à la carte video subscription service.
According to a report from TechCrunch, T-Mobile will forgo the skinny bundle approach and instead let customers “choose which paid TV subscriptions they want to access”, similar to what Amazon is doing with Amazon Channels.
T-Mobile President Mike Sievert says customers already have a plethora of streaming TV services to choose from due to the expansion of OTT (over-the-top) services available today.
T-Mobile’s approach seems to be very similar to Apple’s own TV app. Their service will exist to simplify what customers are already paying for, by taking care of search, discovery, and billing all in one app.
“We don’t have plans to develop an nth undifferentiated skinny bundle,” Sievert continued. “There are plenty of those. We think there’s a more nuanced role for us to play in helping you get access to the great media brands out there that you love, and to be able to put together your own media subscription — and smaller pieces five, six, seven or eight dollars at a time,” he said, adding that T-Mobile would begin this work in 2019.
T-Mobile’s solution may sound appealing to those who already cut cable out of their lives and are currently not subscribing to streaming TV in any capacity. The most enticing piece to the puzzle would be if T-Mobile could cut deals with companies such as Netflix, Hulu, or HBO to offer lower pricing when bundling more than one provider.
Apple, among many others including Disney, are slated to join the video streaming market this year with their own original content deals.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments