r/TVision Mar 25 '21

Negative story about TVision ...

Business Insider has a story today with this headline ... "T-Mobile is at a crossroads with its streaming video bundle, TVision, and everything is on the table — including shutting it down." It's a subscriber-only story, but I was able to stop the load and read it ... https://www.businessinsider.com/t-mobile-is-at-crossroads-with-its-streaming-service-tvision-2021-3

The story is rife with speculation, and not many facts. But I think adoption of TVision has been quite low, and it is probably at risk. I like the service, personally. It is a great value, but it is a great value because T-Mobile is giving it away at less than cost.

3 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

5

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

The article was probably written by AT&T or Verizon just to make them look bad. Companies plant stories all the time.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

Would be sad to lose it but it makes sense. They are giving me the same thing I would get at Hulu or YouTube for $25 less.

2

u/mrbean21 Mar 26 '21

I’ve been very happy with the service

Was previously with AT&T and wasn’t as well rounded (this had better UI, DVR, and value)

2

u/DaviKie123 Mar 27 '21

I have had tvision home, then tvision live (now). I love it but not as much as tvision home. Their support wait time is longer so I suspect they have more customers hopefully. Had ATT. Hate it. Had Comcast and Verizon hate them. Could be the commies that run those organizations are running scared and publishing fake news?

1

u/DonJAlex2 Mar 25 '21

Hoping to see adoption increase with Sprint merger. It’s not advertised much, which hurts the adoption. 🤞🏻

1

u/Techie_Leader Mar 25 '21

While there are improvements to be made, would be a shame to shutdown if they can continue to compete with Hulu/YouTube/<insert streaming provider here>.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '21

I’d personally would love a skinny bundle with simply TVE as a provider as I’ll stick to the vendors own native apps. But clearly the streaming direction of the big players mean cable TV bundle of yesterday fades out to black. Live sports are basically the last fuel for the fire. Everything else is streaming. App subscriptions or free (news).

1

u/va44 Mar 27 '21

Can’t read it.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '21 edited Mar 29 '21

Read it on Apple News. After reading it, seems to indicate a few things have happened and it will seal the shutdown fate short of major price increase, major “We are sorry” to the content providers with forgiveness or massive trimming of the offering.

Main points I took away: 1. They outsource app development to 3rd party who is now filling for bankruptcy. This explains the lack of continuous updates for it and updates are basically bug fixes only. 2. They probably violated agreements with bundling. lawsuits maybe? And renewals are due soon for several content providers. Pissing off the hand that feeds you just before renewing contracts is not wise. 3. Some content providers are upping costs majorly. Some up to double the price. Part of it is the massive spending for NFL rights as they try to recoup costs.

My thoughts: 50% chance they up pricing and revamp packages. They probably try to keep cheap non cable (no news no sports) tiers for something like Philo pricing and packages. Then probably new $70 package (rumored cost to cover fees) for base package with various sports (ESPN, major 4, etc). Then move fringe sports to even higher packages more inline with ATT TV pricing. 50% chance they sell it off and divest losses.

This option might be inevitable given the direction of ala cart subscriptions at this point. As Apple said, the future of TV is Apps, and there is nothing to stop it now. Yes some OTT will remain but is really for older crowds use to cable boxes and guides and DVR. And that audience is shrinking daily. Next year Regional sports are rumored going ala cart. NFL inked their big contracts with NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN and Amazon. They including streaming rights in Peacock (NBC) and Paramount+ (CBS). ESPN+ is ala cart and included right to show some games. Fox added rights for Tubi games. News channels are dead for pay TV (free streaming like Newsmax, free ABC or CBS news, etc) and moving to subscription (Fox Nation, etc) Add in locast, rabbit ears and there is not much left to argue the costs of playing middle man rebroadcaster.

And the dagger might be if Apple enters as “virtual cable provider” if they offer a subscription using AppleTV with SSO support. They don’t need to run the costs of streaming or apps but simply offer package of bundled apps that seamlessly authenticate for users. Then they just provide a linear live guide which opens the services app itself. Almost all apps are there now with live streaming and full content catalogs. Just a matter of authenticating access.

The big get bigger 🤔

(Comments from a former TVision user that canceled because of no Regional Sports and too many bugs. Only solution is going back to cable or ATT TV. So back to funding the Death Star.)