Sling TV is now free during primetime, no credit card required

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: If you’ve been considering cutting the cord and switching to a streaming service, now is the perfect opportunity for a test run with no commitments. The press release didn’t mention an end date so presumably, the offer could run through the duration of stay-at-home orders.

Over-the-top Internet television provider Sling TV on Tuesday announced its Happy Hour Across America promotion, offering free television each night to “help the nation unwind” during this time of uncertainty.

Billed as a public service to American families practicing social distancing, the Dish Network-owned service is inviting users to register to watch free TV each night from 5 p.m. to midnight (no credit card needed). The promotion starts today and affords the entire Sling Blue service with more than 50 live channels including AMC, A&E, CNN, Fox News, FX, HGTV and TLC, just to name a few.

Newcomers also get a free cloud DVR, over 50,000 on-demand titles and simultaneous viewing on three screens.

Sling TV’s Blue package normally sells for $30 per month.

Sling TV said television news consumption on its platform increased 164 percent last month as people are increasingly tuning in for the latest on the Covid-19 crisis. Trends show that users switched from news to entertainment starting at 6 p.m. Eastern with peak viewership happening around 10 p.m. Eastern.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/84824-sling-tv-now-free-during-primetime-no-credit.html

 

[knarp]

As of now, there is no limitation (outside of the 5pm EST to 12am EST) in watching the Live channels that they offer for free as of this writing (3:30 pm EST).'
Maybe Sling is still working out the kinks to only limit between those hours mentioned.

*Note*
You must whitelist Sling or disable your adblocker; otherwise, you'll get an error.

 

[Hexic]

I've had Sling for maybe a year or so, and I absolutely love it. It's nothing fancy, but it has key basic features, the channels that I would want, and the customization for sports, etc.

For $30/mo, you can't beat it.

 

[PEnnn]

Too good to be true?

Pressing "Continue watching Free" will keep showing you nothing but their pricing page!
PS: All ad blockers disabled, same lousy result.

 

[cfbcfbcfb]

I've had Sling for maybe a year or so, and I absolutely love it. It's nothing fancy, but it has key basic features, the channels that I would want, and the customization for sports, etc.

For $30/mo, you can't beat it.

I used to have it but found a few months back that they had cut the 720p bitrate so low that watching an action movie or sporting event from the dvr looks like a stop-motion film. Jerky.

No problem prior, live tv was ok but I don't really watch live tv.

Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Disney+ and so forth stream in full 4K/HDR on the same roku hard wired to the same router. So its not "on my end".

After getting halfway through a few movies or games and saying "this is unwatchable", I changed over to Philo. 1080P video on demand vs 720P on Sling, unlimited 30 day DVR, and all I'm missing is some news channels and the NFL network. The latter isn't a problem until the league starts, if it even does this year. And many news outfits like bloomberg let you watch their shows and live broadcast for free. $20/mo. And no glippy video playback.

If you aren't familiar with bitrate, you have a resolution (720p, 1080p, 4k) but you can change how often those pixels change, how sharp an object displayed looks, how fast moving things change. That's the 'bitrate'. Keeping it low means the video data files are smaller for dvr storage, less network throughput is needed, etc. Its possible to find a bitrate that works for most content, keeps costs and sizes down, and it still looks okay. Sling slipped below that line for dvr'd high motion content to the point of it being unwatchable.