Digitally Independent Cable TV Cord Cutters Discover There's A Downside

Freedom ain't free. Ever. JL

Brian Chen reports in the New York Times:

Streaming services (were) an (in)adequate substitute for a cable package, largely because of content restrictions, broadcast delays and the difficulty of using a game controller with one of the services. The snags include delays in live broadcasts, the inability to fast-forward through some content, and some missing important channels.

This year, Michael Gartenberg, a former technology analyst, took the brave step of canceling his cable subscription. After six months of tinkering with alternatives, he went running back.

Mr. Gartenberg had subscribed to PlayStation Vue, Sony’s online video service that offers a slimmer bundle of TV channels than a traditional cable subscription and for about half the price. Yet he kept running into problems: Many of his favorite channels were missing, like CW and CBS. And after a power failure in his home, he got locked out of his Vue account because his internet address was reset and Sony thought he had switched locations.

Mr. Gartenberg eventually wondered whether Vue was worth the money he was saving. “At that point, there had to be better alternatives than this, and it turned out there was,” he said. “It was cable.”

Mr. Gartenberg’s return to cable is antithetical to the accelerating growth of so-called cord-cutters, the people who have parted ways with cable in favor of streaming video services like Netflix and Hulu. Last year, there were 4.9 million cord-cutters in the United States, up 11 percent from the year before, according to the research firm eMarketer. The number of cord-cutting options is also proliferating, with more content providers like HBO, Showtime and Nickelodeon offering apps for streaming their content without a cable account.

Yet the overwhelming majority of Americans — about 100 million homes — still cling to cable.

What could be getting in the way of cutting the cord? To assess this, I tried Sony’s Vue and Dish Network’s similar streaming service, Sling TV, which also offers a slimmer bundle of TV channels than traditional cable. I decided to compare the two TV bundles rather than stand-alone apps like HBO Go, Netflix and Hulu, because Vue and Sling TV were designed to replace traditional cable packages.

After testing the two for a week, I had an answer: Neither streaming service felt like an adequate substitute for a cable package, largely because of content restrictions, broadcast delays and the difficulty of using a game controller with one of the services.

Comparing the Bundles

What do Sony’s Vue and Sling TV actually offer? Vue’s starter bundle has more than 55 channels, including ESPN, NBC and Disney, for $30 a month. The higher-tier bundles have 70 channels a month for $35 a month and 100 channels for $45 a month.

Sling TV’s base bundle of about 25 channels, which includes ESPN, AMC and CNN, starts at $20 a month. From there, you can add mini bundles, like an extra $5 a month for a group of sports channels, or an additional $5 a month for a children’s bundle including Disney Junior and Nick Toons.Users should be aware that Vue was designed primarily for Sony’s PlayStation 4, which costs about $350. That means the default setup is to use a game controller with the service, though Sony also offers a universal PlayStation 4 remote control that works with Vue for about $30.

Sony also offers Vue apps for iPhones, iPads and Android devices, as well as the Roku, Chromecast and Amazon Fire streaming gadgets.

Sling TV works on more devices, including iPhones, iPads and Android devices, plus Apple TV, the Amazon Fire, Roku, Chromecast and the Microsoft Xbox, among others.

Another difference is that Vue includes DVR, or the ability to record programs to watch later. You can tag your favorite shows and watch episodes for up to 28 days. Sling TV lacks this ability.

The Limitations

For longtime cable subscribers, the limitations on content on Vue and Sling TV may be the toughest to digest. The snags include delays in live broadcasts, the inability to fast-forward through some content, and some missing important channels.

With Sling TV, there were long delays when watching live sports. When streaming the Wimbledon tournament, for example, tennis matches were at least 30 seconds behind the live broadcast of the same match on a cable box. This defeats the purpose of watching live sports — the scores I saw on the screen were behind the scores shown on cable TV or those popping up on Twitter.

Sling TV said a number of factors caused broadcast delays, including the internet connection, type of content and channel. By contrast, there was no noticeable delay when watching live sports on Vue.

Both services also offer some programs for on-demand viewing, or the ability to watch them whenever you want — yet for many shows on both services, the services were forbidden to fast-forward through on-demand content. Sony and Sling said the inability to skip through some recorded content was because of agreements with content partners — in other words, they want you to watch the commercials. The old-school setup of a cable box with TiVo is still more convenient.

There are other restrictions, like some major channels missing from both bundles. Sling TV lacks CBS, CW and Discovery, among others. PlayStation Vue also lacks major channels including CW, BBC America and A&E.

Another limitation on Vue is that your PlayStation needs to stay put — meaning if you activated Vue in your house and then took the PlayStation to your family member’s house, you could not log in to Vue. Sony said that network providers designed this restriction to limit TV viewing to your home.

The Neighbor Test

Watching TV on a big screen is a group experience, so it’s important to be able to hand the remote control to others to let them channel surf. So I invited my neighbors over and asked them to do something simple with Vue and Sling TV: Find something they wanted to watch. They accomplished the tasks fairly quickly on both services, though they struggled with the PlayStation game controller.

One neighbor, who works for a utility company, took about three minutes to figure out how to use the PlayStation controller to load the TV guide and pick something to watch. His wife, a scientist, took about a minute. A third neighbor, a museum worker, fumbled with the controller for about four minutes before finding an episode of “Scandal.” They all found the universal remote control, which Sony sells separately, much more intuitive.

By contrast, the test subjects all immediately knew how to use Sling TV to pick TV shows or sports events they wanted to watch, using a Roku TV remote, largely because its interface was more streamlined than the Vue’s.

The Bottom Line

It’s tough to recommend either Vue or Sling TV as replacements for a majority of cable subscribers. Technologically, both Vue and Sling TV have better-designed software than a traditional cable box from Comcast, Time Warner or Charter. But because there are some missing major channels and annoying restrictions on how content can be watched, most consumers are better off sticking with cable.

Sports fans may enjoy getting access to ESPN and other sports channels on either Vue or Sling TV for less than the cost of a traditional cable subscription. But the broadcast delay on Sling TV is a deal breaker. And if you don’t regularly play video games, buying a PlayStation 4 just for watching sports is costly and impractical. (The Vue apps made for cheaper streaming devices, like Roku and Fire TV, aren’t as powerful as the PlayStation app.)

Roger Lynch, the chief executive of Sling TV, said the service gave people the flexibility to subscribe to bundles based on their preferences. “Everyone has their own reasons for becoming a Sling subscriber,” he said in an interview.

Eric Lempel, a marketing executive for Sony, said, “We wanted to give you all the channels that you want,” without the need to pay for hundreds of unnecessary channels.

For a small set of cable subscribers, both Vue and Sling TV will have all the channels they want, but they will also include unwanted channels, too.

In a perfect world, consumers could pick each channel they want and pay for it, à la carte. But the content providers still hold the cards, and there is no easy way to do that quite yet.