DVR+ screen showing Sling TV as an optionSling just sent out an email to subscribers, presumably just those who watch on a Channel Master DVR+, which began, “The time has come for us to bid farewell to one of our devices. Soon, Sling TV will no longer be supported on Channel Master.”

That was all the useful information the note provided about this change, so while I await responses to my inquiries to Sling and Channel Master, it’s a good thing that I have enough questions and speculation to fill the gap.

When is soon? The end of the year is a natural, but it might also align with …

Does this have anything to do with Channel Master’s Stream+? It’s supposed to launch at CES 2018, which is pretty soon, and it shares some characteristics and a common source (Technicolor) with Sling’s AirTV Player. When Sling jumped on the DVR+ at CES 2016, it was hungry for subscribers and didn’t have its own device. Maybe now Sling sees Channel Master as a competitor? Which leads to …

Who initiated this change? Is Channel Master just shifting Sling viewers to the Sling Android TV app, which I would presume to be available on the Stream+? (Apparently not, see update below.) Did Sling want to make changes that wouldn’t fit on the DVR+? Or for some truly wild speculation, will Sling use CES 2018 to announce a local OTA DVR for AirTV?

I doubt that we’ll get all of those answers before next month, but I’ll update this as soon as I hear anything more.

Update: Channel Master emailed me to say that Sling initiated its removal from the DVR+. CM wrote, “Unfortunately, we do not have a reason behind their decision to pull the support.” I’m sorry to see it go.

Probably because all the cool kids run pay-TV services, T-Mobile will acquire Level3 TV, as recounted by Jeff Baumgartner of Multichannel News. T-Mobile said it will “launch a disruptive new TV service in 2018.” With all the other over-the-top services in place, I can’t imagine a niche in which T-Mobile would outperform the incumbents. But I’ve been wrong before.

In a similar vein, Stephanie Prange at Home Media Magazine described the relaunch of Redbox on Demand. It won’t be like the service that it shut down in 2014, instead providing options that remind me a lot of Vudu’s – short-term rentals or digital purchases. Redbox doesn’t have Vudu’s head start, but it’s got plenty of existing kiosk customers. But if your customers already rent new DVDs for less than $2 at kiosks, then how do you pitch the idea that they should stay home and pay $4 to rent the same movies online?

And Bloomberg’s Kyle Stock examines why it’s so hard to find Christmas classic films on streaming services. It’s because they’re not the fresh content that pay services crave and they’re not the long-tail losers that a studio might be willing to license on the cheap. “Of the 25 greatest holiday movies as ranked by American Movie Classics, only five are available for streaming on Amazon.com, Hulu or Netflix this season.” That’s one reason my holiday tradition is the cartoon Christmas Comes But Once a Year. It’s always free at the Internet Archive.

NFL logoAs reported by Variety, FierceCable, and plenty of other outlets, Verizon announced today that it will pay the NFL more than $2 billion for another five years of streaming rights through the 2022-23 season. It’s a hefty increase over its current $1 billion four-year deal, yet Verizon will no longer be the exclusive source of streaming games on smartphones, although it can offer them on its other properties such as Yahoo Sports, AOL, and Go90. Also, Go90 still exists.

The only games that aren’t covered are out-of-market Sunday afternoon games, which will continue to be the big, expensive carrot dangled by DirecTV for at least a few more seasons.

The best part of the deal, from my perspective, is the end of the goofy no-phone rules by which I could watch a game on NFL Network on Sling on my tablet but not my phone, or watch Monday Night Football on the Watch ESPN app on my AirTV but not my phone. You get the idea. It seems like a win-win – the league gets more viewers and we get to watch our paid services where we want. Let’s hope when the details emerge that it works out that way.

Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press are organizing one last-ditch effort to fight the FCC’s coming vote to kill net neutrality. On Tuesday, Dec. 12, dozens of web sites (including this one) will display banners suggesting what the future will be like if internet service providers are allowed to pick winners and losers. The Break the Internet project directs visitors to call their Congressional representatives to pressure the FCC to hold off on making that change.

A few years ago, this tactic worked great to stop SOPA by threatening anyone who would face re-election. The difficulty this time is that the FCC commissioners don’t have to worry about being voted out by the public, so pressure is necessarily indirect. (There’s also the problem of the Republican majority at the FCC in favor of dropping Title II protection and Republican control of both houses of Congress.)

Will this online protest do any good? I doubt it, but I’ve been wrong before.

Pluto TV guide screenInventing free TV packages on paper was something I used to do a lot. In the glory days of free-to-air satellite TV, the idea was to put together enough free (or dirt cheap), attractive, useful channels on one transponder to get viewers to buy and install Ku-band equipment, and then the size of the audience would attract other channels and so forth.

I’m reminded of those big ideas when I fire up Pluto TV, an amazing collection of live channels and video on demand. It’s all free, mostly ad-supported, and it makes a wonderful supplement for cord-cutters who rely on over-the-air broadcast TV.

My top two categories of typically neglected genres on OTA TV are news (most of the day) and sports (most of the week). Pluto has news covered, with NBC News, CBS News, The Weather Network, Bloomberg, and much more. And Pluto has a bit of sports, with Stadium, Big Sky Conference schools, and a couple of other Pluto-originated catchalls. There are also several live movie channels and plenty of alternative entertainment channels. The lineup changes now and then, but you can download a list (pdf). And like my imaginary satellite service, it’s asking for more channels to join its lineup.

(Lately my guilty pleasure has been Slow TV, with long, uninterrupted videos of Norwegian train rides. As with NatureVision TV, it’s a soothing background for any other activity. And for the holidays, there’s also a fireplace to “watch”. Such peaceful enjoyment!)

Pluto also offers a lot of free ad-supported on-demand movies and TV shows. Vudu’s Movies On Us is a similar free program, but I wonder whether Pluto’s inventory is larger.

Viewing platforms are not a problem. I can watch Pluto on just about anything: smartphone, tablet, Windows desktop, Roku, AirTV, and more. It’s a big reason why I’m looking forward to seeing Channel Master’s new receiver next month; if it’s based on Android TV, it’ll run the Pluto TV app. If anyone can combine a good OTA DVR (like CM’s DVR+) and Pluto TV in the same box, they’d have a great combo for cord-cutters.