Sling TV, one of the prominent streaming services out there and one of the more affordable, is getting a price increase across its subscription tiers. Some are even increasing by $4 per month.
This is more targeted to the plans offering popular local stations, such as Fox, ABC, or NBC.
Sling TV Price Increase
While it hasn’t gone into effect for everyone, the Sling TV price increase is already applying to new customers and will affect existing ones after February 20th. The increases are affected by location and local channel access.
The biggest change, though, involves the local channel fees: customers with all three local channels (ABC/NBC/Fox) will have to pay $9/month to access them instead of $5. For those who have one or two of the local channels, the price is now $4/month after previously being free to access.
Below are the new prices for Sling TV’s subscriptions:
- Sling Base: $49.99
- Sling Orange: $45.99
- Sling Blue: $49.99
- Sling Select: $24.99
- Sling Orange & Blue: $64.99
- Sling Blue with 3 local channels: $49.99 + $9
- Sling Blue with 1 or 2 local channels: $49.99 + $4
- Sling Select with 3 local channels: $19.99 for no locals, $24.99 for 1-2, $29.99 for all 3
It’s important to note that in areas where local broadcast channels are not available, you will not see a change in pricing.
No Notifications
Price increases are common nowadays, especially on streaming services. However, users across Reddit and other forums are upset at Sling TV for a different reason.
The platform never notified or emailed current/new users about the price increase. Instead, it just happened automatically on new bills.
Sling TV has not even announced the increase on its website, still showing older prices or totally different prices.
It will be interesting to see if the price change is finally reflected on February 20th, when all subscriptions should be increased.
Reason Behind the Increase
Based on the prices and the target around local channels, the increase is most likely due to carriage fees for local channels to be carried on Sling TV. These channels are Fox, NBC, and ABC.
In a statement on Sling’s website, the company revealed that the local channels are the most expensive part of its lineups: “The cost we pay to local broadcast networks in order to provide you with the programming you count on continues to rise significantly — well above the price of inflation.”