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Sling.com to show off free TV, video clips

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 24, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Sling Media's menu of shows includes CBS' Survivor. Sling.com reflects the trend for TV to be watched anytime, anywhere.

Photo by Sling Media Inc. / Special To The Rocky

Sling Media's menu of shows includes CBS' Survivor. Sling.com reflects the trend for TV to be watched anytime, anywhere.

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Sling Media, now part of Douglas County-based EchoStar Technologies, is launching a Web site today that initially will offer more than 600 free TV shows and video clips.

Sling.com is the latest Internet site to offer such content, reflecting the trend for TV to be watched anytime, anywhere.

Content partners include CBS, MSNBC, Fox, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Starz Entertainment, PBS and Comedy Time. Shows range from selected episodes of 30 Rock and Survivor to the original Star Trek. Not all the content is available yet.

Sling Media is best-known for its Slingbox, a device that enables viewers to watch their home TV remotely from a computer or cell phone with a high-speed Internet connection.

Any Internet user will be able to watch Sling.com, which Sling Media hopes will make money through an advertising revenue- sharing program with its content providers.

Slingbox owners don't have to download any special software onto a computer to watch their home TV. Sling.com makes it easy to control multiple Slingboxes through a media player/remote control called the SlingCatcher.

Sling isn't alone in the free-TV online market.

Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and Fox, launched a similar service this year, and among the many other competitors are Joost, Veoh, Comcast's FanCast, MSN, MetaCafe and, of course, YouTube. Viewers also can watch shows online by going directly to TV networks such as NBC.com.

Subscription services such as Netflix focus on movies. Liberty Media's Starz Entertainment dabbled in that business with Vongo but decided in August to focus solely on a wholesale model called Starz Play.

Brian Jaquet, spokesman for Sling Media, said he doesn't believe the market has too many players.

"I think this is a hot market," he said. "Hulu has set a nice bar."

James McQuivey, a principal analyst for Forrester Research, said by e-mail "the market is saturated in one sense."

But, McQuivey said, there's little cost to building a Web site "since all Sling has to do is sign up to become a syndication partner for the TV networks.

"More importantly, the site is really just Sling's secret strategy for delivering Internet content to the TV via the SlingCatcher (media player)," McQuivey said.

McQuivey said consumers will see more efforts to deliver Internet content to the TV.

Jaquet noted TV networks first resisted the idea of free online programming but increasingly have realized there's little to stop such content from being ubiquitous on the Internet.

He also said a site like Sling.com can help drive more traffic to the TV networks by promoting when a TV show airs, and other episodes and aspects of the show.

smithje@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155

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