• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, February 12, 2015

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger has a ring of truth to it, but it’s not really accurate about many things--think Blackberry, for one.  

On the face of it, it would seem Dish’s new Sling TV could be a pretty solid nail in the cable coffin and a great companion device for people who are already streaming online for lots of content.

“It's tough to overstate the importance of Sling TV, the first Internet-only service to allow you to watch live ESPN, CNN, TNT and a handful of other live pay TV channels, for just $20 per month,” says CNET.  

The important word in that product mini-review is “handful.”

Because amid the early reviews, the bottom note is that Sling TV’s selections just aren’t enough. They’re not quite right.

“The good news about Sling TV is that 13 channels is definitely enough to replace a bloated cable package,” writes Troy Dreier for StreamingMedia.com. “The bad news is that they aren't the same 13 channels for every viewer.” He says that while Sling TV is aimed at the millennial viewer whose interest in most cable networks is nil, the Sling TV selection is among the...nillest.

“With the selection offered, we often couldn't find anything worth watching. It was either cartoon reruns on TBS or home remodeling reality shows on HGTV. Anyone considering signing up should be sure they really love this selection,” he wrote.

Sling offers ESPN, ESPN2, TBS, TNT, CNN, HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, ABC Family, Disney Channel, El Rey Network and Galavision  which on the face of it would seem to cover the little-bit-of-everything standard. But a lot of reviewers--and maybe consumers--found that list kind of a yawn. There was a lot more favorable reaction earlier this week when Sling TV added AMC. 

“Yeah, that AMC . . . the one that has “Mad Men,” the new “Breaking Bad” spinoff “Better Call Saul” and “The Walking Dead.” It’s arguably cable’s hottest non-premium channel, and now you don’t need cable to watch it,” wrote Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger Dwight Silverman a couple days ago, seeming to reverse his tepid early appraisal.

But is that enough?

It might be that what Sling TV is proving is that customers with cable might be unhappy with SlingTV because it’s such a half loaf, and unappealing to consumers who don’t consider themselves part of the television experience--millennials, that is--who won’t be enticed by a smaller package of stuff they don’t watch in the first place.

“...After watching just a few hours of Sling TV, I remembered why I never wanted to pay for TV in the first place. Here's the thing—Millennials and cord cutters alike don't want channels, they want shows,” writes Megan Geuss for ArsTechnica.com in a story whose headline zeroes in on .the principle question: “Do cord cutters and “cord nevers” even want live TV?”  

“What I'm saying is, I'm a cord cutter because I don't want to pay for crap I'm not interested in watching... I don't know if folks liberated from their cable agreements will care about Sling TV if there's not really good programming to pay for." 

Maybe Dish misses the boat by not more boldly advertising that it also offers content from Maker Studios, the major YouTube MCN that is home to “Epic Rap Battles” and PewDiePie.

Saying Sling TV is aimed at millennials at least gets advertisers’ attention, and that’s relevant, too, because it will offer dynamic ad insertion where untypical advertisers can reach TV-like audiences. 

But the reality is that most cable networks aren’t aimed at milllennials. The average age of a cable network viewer is 40. But, notes David Lieberman for Deadline. com, “The average viewer for eight of Sling’s channels was older than the oldest millennial: That includes CNN (average age 59.1), HGTV (56.4), TNT (53.6), ESPN2 (53.1), ESPN (48.6), Travel Channel (48.2), Food Network (47.6), and TBS (44.4).”  The oldest millennial is 35.

Sling TV has just started selling the service. It’s not too early to say it will be a game changer, because that was said over and over when it was first announced. It is, however, too early to say if that was a correct prediction. We’ll see.