Sling TV Drops 109,000 Subscribers, Down Nearly 11% Since Last Year

The Q2 numbers are in for Sling TV and they’re not looking good. The budget streaming TV provider lost 109,000 subscribers to close out the first half of the year. Now just 1,785,000 subscribers remain.

To be fair, most live TV providers do lose subscribers over the summer as the NBA and NHL have wrapped their seasons and the NFL hasn’t returned. But a look at the numbers over the last 4 years is scary. Sling now has 654,000 fewer subscribers than the same point in 2021. That’s nearly a 27% decline.

But here’s the thing: Sling TV is actually pretty great. It’s been my go-to service for the past two NFL seasons. They offer discounted pricing when you pay for several months in advance. They have flexible channel packages so you don’t pay for as many channels you might not normally want. Having Sling TV in the competition is good for consumers.

Live TV is in a chicken-or-the-egg scenario right now. Viewers are leaving, so networks are investing less money in orignal programming, which causes more viewers to leave. It’s absurd to pay for MTV when it’s 22 hours a day of “Jersey Shore” and “Ridiculousness.” But if MTV invested in more programming, would viewers come? Sports is the only thing holding live TV together. The NFL accounted for 72 of the 100 most-watched events last year. College football, the Olympics, and presidential political events, are basically the only other events to crack that list.

In their Q2 earnings call, company leaders said Sling TV viewership had increased 18% year-over-year. We heard something similar from Paramount, which reported yesterday that viewing hours for Paramount+ and Pluto TV were up 29% year-over-year. It seems the people sticking with these streaming services are becoming more loyal to them. Or maybe consumers are just carrying fewer subscriptions these days, so they’re maximizing the services they do have.

In any case, we expect Sling TV will be one of our frontrunners for recommended services when the NFL season kicks off. Its price is hard to beat, especially if you prepay for several months in advance.