'I want my MTV': Sling TV gets Comedy Central and more after Viacom deal
"I want my MTV."
That was the now-famous marketing gimmick that an upstart network once used to get audiences to pressure their cable companies into carrying MTV, the new youth-oriented music channel.
It worked. MTV became a cultural phenomenon that is now available in more than 93 million homes.
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And pretty soon, it's going to be in a lot more.
On Thursday, Viacom and DISH Network announced a new agreement to keep the cable company's 18 channels on the service -- including Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, VH1, Spike, BET and, of course, MTV.
This is a pretty normal occurrence. The companies that produce television and the companies that carry or beam that content into your homes must periodically renegotiate new contracts as old ones expire.
Thursday's announcement would have been just another one of these relatively mundane agreements, except for one particular detail: DISH will now be carrying many of those channels on its web-based service Sling TV.
DISH launched Sling TV in January 2015 as the first real "skinny bundle" of cable channels delivered over the Internet. Before then, the idea of delivering TV over the Internet had been mostly theoretical. Since the, other companies have either launched similar services (Playstation Vue) or been in negotiations (cough, Apple).
That puts Viacom's channels into any home in America with an Internet connection
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman specifically called out Sling TV in his comments in a press release.
"DISH has historically been and remains an important partner for Viacom, and as part of our commitment to entertain audiences wherever they are, we are pleased to offer select Viacom networks as part of DISH’s Sling TV product," Dauman said.
DISH and Viacom did not discuss whether the new channels would be available for an additional fee on top of the base $20-per-month package.
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Even if those channels do end up costing more (and there's a chance they won't), the additions now make Sling TV a truly formidable package when compared to a larger -- and almost certainly more expensive -- cable bundle.
Customers will still need to get an antenna to get broadcast channels. Only Sony's Playstation Vue service has been able to strike enough deals to offer broadcast TV, which requires providers to sign deals in every market in which the service will be available.
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Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
