Dish's Sling TV just launched its first slate of TV ads, and the spots make it all too clear what millennials think of the old model for pay TV. TV providers these days are like schoolyard bullies, forcing their customers into long-term contracts, too many channels, hidden fees, and piss-poor customer service. Thankfully, Sling provides access to 20 live cable channels — including the ever popular ESPN — and a massive video-on-demand library for $20 a month. Why settle for old hassles? It's time to take back TV! Et cetera.
The funny thing is Sling TV is still a product of Dish Network, a satellite TV provider, so it's easy enough to aim the spots' barbs right back at the source at least in general. (Though customers would probably be quicker to complain about missing channels than about useless ones.) Dish, for its part, doesn't see it that way. The company considers Sling TV, which it launched back in January, as the start of "a whole new industry" that's still complementary to its satellite service rather than supplementary. And anyway, according to Sling marketing chief Glenn Eisen, millennials "didn’t need to have that subscription experience to have an opinion about it." Either way, internet TV is the new normal and it's not going anywhere — even if the messaging is a little confusing.
Verge Video: Cutting the cord with Dish's Sling TV at CES 2015