T-Mobile Makes Another Bid for Pay-TV Viewers
October 27 2020 - 1:28PM
Dow Jones News
By Drew FitzGerald
T-Mobile US Inc. is launching a new home television service
aimed at the millions of U.S. households that have cut the cable
cord in recent years, jumping into the already crowded streaming
video market.
The country's No. 2 cellphone carrier said Tuesday that its
long-planned TV service will start next week with three tiers:
TVision Vibe, a bundle with nonsports channels like BET and Comedy
Central for a $10 monthly fee; TVision Live, a midrange package
with local broadcast channels, sports channels like ESPN and news
brands such as CNN for $40 to $60 a month; and TVision Channels,
which adds on premium cable options like Showtime and Starz.
The company plans to make its TV service available in stages.
T-Mobile customers can access the service starting Sunday, followed
by its legacy Sprint customers later in November. The wireless
operator plans to eventually provide the service to customers of
other cellphone carriers.
T-Mobile unveiled a $50 Hub device with remote controls to carry
the service through a plug-in dongle. The app is also available on
Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Google TV devices. T-Mobile offered a
year of free Apple TV+, the iPhone maker's own on-demand video
service, to customers who sign up this year.
The wireless company's TV service is entering a market plagued
by customer losses and dwindling profitability. Many cable
customers have dropped TV subscriptions from their bills, opting
instead to buy broadband internet service as a stand-alone item and
sign up for a panoply of video services such as Netflix and
Disney+.
So-called virtual pay-TV services delivered entirely online
haven't fared much better. AT&T Inc.'s DirecTV Now service,
which delivers channels over the internet without a satellite, has
shrunk since peaking at two million subscribers in 2018.
PlayStation Vue, a TV service from Sony Corp., shut down last
year.
Wireless internet services are still a small sliver of the more
than 100 million U.S. households that subscribe to home broadband
by wire. On Tuesday, T-Mobile offered few details about its
fifth-generation home broadband service. Executives have promised
to use the trove of airwave licenses acquired earlier this year
through T-Mobile's takeover of rival Sprint Corp. to offer 5G
internet service over the air, but the company's network overhaul
is still a work in progress.
TVision is T-Mobile's second attempt at navigating a struggling
pay-TV industry after its 2018 purchase of Layer3 TV for $325
million. The company has spent the past two year piecing together
the rights to carry enough traditional live TV channels to compete
with its bigger cable-TV rivals.
T-Mobile wrote down most of Layer3's value this year, citing a
new strategy based partly on recently acquired content rights.
Layer3 delivered live TV channels to a small group of customers,
but its high cost and cablelike delivery system stunted its
growth.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 27, 2020 13:13 ET (17:13 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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