• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, January 31, 2023

Sling TV has made an agreement with Disney to add local ABC stations in eight cities as of March 1.

The markets are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Fresno, California and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

In five markets in which Sling TV already carries local NBC and Fox stations, subscribers to the Sling Blue and Sling Orange and Blue packages will get $5-per-month price increases, bringing their monthly fees to $45 and $60, respectively.

The markets getting increases are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Prices for those in the rest of the country will not be affected.

“For many years, Sling has been able to absorb the increasing costs of these local broadcast channels,” Gary Schanman, group president of Sling TV, said in a statement. “To carry ABC, Fox and NBC, we need to ensure our pricing includes some of the cost of delivering these services.” 

Sling TV carried ABC-owned stations through a “Broadcast Extra” package until 2018.

It already carries Fox-owned affiliates in 18 markets (including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.) and NBC-owned affiliates in 11 markets (including New York, Boston and Los Angeles).

In October, Sling TV owner Dish resolved a dispute with Disney over terms of carrying Disney cable channels including ESPN, FX, Disney Channle and National Geographic. That ended a two-day blackout of the Disney properties on the Sling TV and Dish platforms. Sling TV subsequently increased the prices of its base packages.

In a January SEC filing, Sling reported having 2.33 million U.S subscribers at year-end 2022. That was down from 2.4 million in Q3 2022 and 2.6 million in Q3 2021.

The Disney blackout and prices increases may have contributed to the late-year losses.

However, Sling TV’s prices are still lower than those of FuboTV, YouTubeTV and Hulu+ Live TV.