T-Mobile Kills Live TV Service Just A Few Months After Launch
from the that-went-well dept
You might recall that pre-merger T-Mobile used to make fun of the wireless sector's repeated failures in the TV space, such as Verizon's massive Go90 face plant. Of course, at the same time, T-Mobile was busy planning its own streaming TV efforts. Launched just last fall, T-Mobile's TVision TV service was supposed to truly disrupt the stodgy TV sector (something already happening at the hands of countless platforms). T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert explained it like this last October:
"If ever there was an industry that needed an Un-carrier overhaul, it’s cable and satellite TV,” Sievert said, using the company’s term for its disruptive moves in the wireless industry. “I mean, it’s no secret why these companies are dying, they treat their customers so badly."
That was then, this is now. Less than half a year later, T-Mobile is now scrapping its live TV service and striking a deal to offer YouTube live TV services instead:
"It’s a major change for T-Mobile’s TVision service, which was launched just a few months ago, including both live and on-demand content. T-Mobile says the existing TVision Live, Live + and Live Zone services will be phased out starting April 29. T-Mobile customers will get a $10/month discount on YouTube TV, bringing the price down to $54.99/month, as well as a month of free service."
As Verizon and AT&T, have found, disrupting the TV sector is no easy feat, even when (in AT&T's case) you actually own a massive content empire in Time Warner. There are numerous reasons for telecom's failure to compete meaningfully in this space, a lot of it having to do with the fact that telecom giants, used to the lack of serious competition in broadband, aren't genuinely used to this whole disruption, competition, adaptation, and innovation stuff. Even T-Mobile, which made its fortunes being a competitive thorn in AT&T and Verizon's side, didn't find it to be a particularly easy road.
Granted there is still something to be said for T-Mobile figuring this out before it poured countless billions down the drain. Sort of. The company did spend an estimated $325 million to buy premium streaming vendor Layer3TV back in 2018.
Still, the losses aren't as bad as say, AT&T, which spent nearly $200 billion in megamergers thinking it was going to dominate the TV sector, only to lose 8 million TV subscribers in a few years (something I recently wrote about at The Verge) because it had absolutely no idea what it was actually doing. T-Mobile also seemed to assume this would be an easier path that it actually was, made tougher by the fact that the same broadcasters driving relentless price hikes in traditional TV, are also doing the same thing in streaming:
This is very funny, since the main thing T-Mobile learned is that TV networks like being paid the correct rates for their programming https://t.co/g7S6wXPe0i pic.twitter.com/21kBw4z7I1
— nilay patel (@reckless) March 29, 2021
Another factor at play is that this version of T-Mobile isn't actually as disruptive as the trash-talking version helmed by former CEO John Legere just a few years ago. Thanks to the Sprint merger, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile see significantly less competition. As a result, investors will inevitably pressure them to compete even less intently on price, and they'll inevitably comply. As a result, all of T-Mobile's "uncarrier" disruptive plays have been getting progressively lamer and lamer, with the company desperately hoping nobody notices.
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Filed Under: mike sievert, tv streaming, tvision
Companies: t-mobile
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Hollywood greed
It seems like one of the major problems cable has is the terrible contracts/requirements the entertainment industry demands. It ends up that they can't or it's too expensive, to give customers what they want. With the internet, we have plenty of other entertainment options.
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Re: Hollywood greed
I'm shocked to see that not only is Youtube charging $55/month for... something?... and, that price is after the discount. So, $65/month normally? What's that for, and are people actually paying it, or will this be the next service to die? I mean, it's Google, so it's likely they're half-assing it in some way...
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why does live TV still exist?
Other than sports and news, there's no good reason for TV to be "live" anyway. Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, HBO Max etc are taking over what used to be called live TV. It's live when you want to watch it.
As for sports, I think that's taking shape on streaming now. Fubo or maybe Amazon will figure out the right approach.
News? Not sure what role it plays in streaming. Nobody seems willing to pay for news, unless it's some kind of wingnut/moonbat conspiracy nonsense. Trumps' "news" streaming platform should do very well. There's one born every minute...
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Re: why does live TV still exist?
There's nothing fundamentally special about sports that makes "liveness" more important than a movie or a TV episode. You might want to see it as soon as possible, but that's just your preference, and I might have a similar preference with respect to blockbuster movies.
News, of course, only "needs" to be live because of its definition. That says nothing about whether most of the stuff on "the news" is actually something we need to see as news. We might be better off learning about most such information a day or a week after it happens—if ever. Haven't we all seen enough of reporters standing around emergency vehicles with no real information, just speculating to fill airtime?
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Re: why does live TV still exist?
Sports, and other events lots of people want to watch at once like awards shows and breaking news, might be enough. Streaming still struggles with audiences beyond the order of a couple million, and it'll probably never do as well at it as the one-to-many linear TV architecture. But that probably only requires a handful of channels total, maybe enough to count on one hand.
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Re: Re: why does live TV still exist?
PlutoTV is great at Live TV events, and you don't fucking need cable or satellite for it. There are also free live streaming apps on Roku, last I checked. For sports fans, I believe they now have more options such as ESPN+ and other apps.
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A streaming service needs to have content that people really want , drama, comedy, s, true crime, films,
CNN fox news cnbc will exist on cable TV they still get big ratings
Alot of nfl is being show broadcast on standard TV but will also will be streamed at the same time under the new 2021 contracts
Disney is making alot of new star wars and marvel shows
cos they know fans will pay to acess new content
There's alot of old shows being rebooted for streaming
Services
Maybe it'll take years for it all to shake out
as to what streaming services gain a large audience
I don't think Att will ever get back the billions they spent on
Directtv
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Re:
Except where real time is what is required, like sports, broadcast TV will die, because on demand allows people to set their own schedule, rather than having it set by the broadcaster.
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