Sony yesterday "launched its cloud-based TV service, called Vue," but "sports juggernaut ESPN" is not among the networks offered, according to Meg James of the L.A. TIMES. Being offered to PlayStation 3 and 4 owners "in just three metropolitan markets" -- Chicago, N.Y. and Philadelphia -- Vue features "such popular networks as CBS, Cartoon Network, CNN, Comedy Central, Food Network, Fox, NBC, TBS and Discovery Communications channels including Animal Planet." The "basic package of channels, called 'Access,' will run $49.99 a month." For an extra $10 per month, subscribers "can get the service's basic lineup plus a package that includes Turner Classic Movies and sports outlets, including the Golf Channel" and RSNs such as YES Network in N.Y. (L.A. TIMES, 3/19). Sony PlayStation Vue Head of Business Amit Nag said that the company "continues to talk to Disney/ESPN as well as other potential programming partners about adding their networks to the service." Nag: "This is not an overnight thing. We felt we had a lineup that was ready to launch." A Disney-ESPN distribution group rep said, "We are always talking to all our partners about new ways to distribute our programming but we don’t get into specifics with each" (VARIETY.com, 3/18).
MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS? RE/CODE's Peter Kafka wrote, "Do you want your pay TV with sports or without sports?" That question for years "has been more or less academic: If you paid for cable TV (or satellite TV, or telco TV), you got sports, and you paid a lot for it, because Disney’s ESPN and its related channels are the most expensive part of your monthly bill." Now, for the first time, "you’re going to have a real choice." Kafka: "You can thank Dish Network and Sony for that." Dish Network’s Sling TV service "includes ESPN." Kafka: "Now we get a real-world test: Do people really care enough about sports, and ESPN specifically, to pay for it? Or are they happy to pay for lots of other stuff but not ESPN? We won’t see the results for a while, but when we get them they could have important meaning for lots of people in the TV business" (RECODE.net, 3/18).
