Sling TV has become the first virtual MVPD service to launch on Comcast’s Xfiinity Flex platform.
Sling Blue and Sling Orange, as well as the various international iterations of the Sling TV service will be available on Xfinity Flex, a thin-client video service which incorporates elements of Comcast’s full X1 video platform, including Voice Remote, and is offered for free by the cable company to its broadband-only customers.
Comcast announced in May that Xfinity Flex had surpassed the 1 million user mark. The platform already supports Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Pluto TV and Comcast-owned Xumo. Notably, Comcast’s new streaming service—which launches nationally over the open internet July 15—has been available on Xfinity Flex since mid-April.
As for Dish Network’s Sling TV, it has been natively integrated on Comcast’s X1 pay TV platform since 2016.
Initially, integration on Flex will merely include the ability to launch the service via the Voice Remote. But Comcast’s plans to more tightly integrate Sling TV as time goes on.
Sling TV lost 281,000 customers in the first quarter, and it has slipped behind Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV in the vMVPD race. It finished Q1 with around 2.3 million customers.
But Sling TV has the inside track on a number of platforms—it’s also natively integrated into TiVo’s new connected TV device, for instance, the TiVo Stream 4K.
