In January, Dish announced that it was finally going to destroy the much-derided model of bundling expensive TV channel packages once and for all with Sling TV, a new streaming service that will allow people to watch ESPN, TBS, Cartoon Network, and a handful of other networks without anyone having to sell their souls to Time Warner or Comcast. That means that, for only $20 a month, you can cut the proverbial cord and banish the villainous cable companies from your home forever. Unless, of course, you like to watch HBO—which wasn’t offered on Sling TV at first.
However, according to Deadline, that’s going to change soon. Starting around April 12 (when Game Of Thrones premieres), Sling TV users who are willing to pay an extra $15 every month can watch HBO live and access the same collection of On Demand shows, movies, and pornography that HBO Go offers. If literally everything about that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly the same as the HBO Now service that the network announced in March. Sling’s HBO thing isn’t being called HBO Now, though, because Apple gave HBO enough money for Now to be “exclusive” to Apple devices. Apparently, it was just paying for the name—which is something that Apple should be familiar with, since that’s already a big part of its business model.