Weekly Rewind
Sling TV and PlayStation Vue tweaks: This week, Sling TV made a major change to its $5 per month Hollywood Extra add-on. Epix, Epix 2, and Epix Hits are moving to a new $5 per month Epix package, while Epix Drive-In is moving to Sling’s base packages at no extra charge. In place of those channels, Sling is adding Reelz to its Hollywood Extra add-on, where it joins Fandor Festival, HDNet, Sundance TV, and TCM. (The change makes Hollywood Extra a lot less appealing, in my opinion.) Sling will also host its first Pay-Per-View event on Saturday, showing UFC 214 for $60.
Meanwhile, PlayStation Vue is adding a new Sports add-on pack for $10 per month, with nine channels including NFL Redzone, MLB Strike Zone, and ESPN Goal Line. This replaces the previous $40-per-season option for NFL Redzone by itself, and seems like an attempt to reel in year-round subscriptions for premium sports channels. If all you care about is Redzone, you’ll have to remember to cancel at the end of December.
The ads in your ad-free streaming services: CNBC has an interesting story out about Branded Entertainment Network, a Bill Gates-owned company that handles product placement in streaming services. The key takeaway? Nearly all Amazon Prime shows and roughly three quarters of all Netflix shows have at least one product placement. Each placement costs between $50,000 and $500,000 per episode.
While product placement isn’t a new concept in traditional TV, networks are also starting to lean on this tactic more in place of traditional ads, with Saturday Night Live being a recent example. It’s not hard to imagine a future where six-second ads and stealthy product placements replace lengthy commercial breaks in most cases. And that’s probably okay, provided those placements aren’t too eggregious.
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