Streaming TV aggregator MyBundle.TV will now allow customers to sign up and pay for Dish Network's Sling TV right from the platform, the companies announced on Thursday.
The integration marks the first time MyBundle.TV has offered customers the ability to pay for a subscription-based linear streaming television service within the platform and without having to visit an external website.
The move comes as MyBundle.TV seeks to integrate billing features for more streaming television services, which will help it offer customers a single platform for managing their streaming TV subscriptions.
MyBundle.TV offers its own marketplace for live and on-demand streaming services, as well as a white-label service that integrates into the customer portals of more than 80 Internet service providers.
In a phone interview on Thursday, MyBundle.TV co-founder Jason Cohen said its partnership with Sling TV fits nicely with the platform's mission of helping TV viewers find the streaming channels and programming they want, then manage those subscriptions from a single platform.
"There's a lot of different combinations that Sling TV offers, and since we're helping consumers find the channels they need, especially for those that don't need locals or need an antenna, Sling TV is a great solution," Cohen said.
Cohen affirmed the company is having conversations with other streaming services over native billing integrations, though he declined to say which companies were part of those discussions. But the benefits of integrating with MyBundle.TV were clear, he said, because the platform allows streaming services to have exposure to millions of broadband customers among its partner ISPs, and native billing will help increase sales because it makes it easier for customers to sign up.
"From a typical e-commerce perspective, the less clicks you make someone do, the less places you take them, the more sales you'll have," Cohen said. "We want to say to the streaming world, if you have a direct to consumer streaming product, we're building a network of broadband partners where you don't have to do the integration one by one. When you integrate with our platform, you get access to our broadband partners."
That was one of the things that caught the attention of Sling TV and ultimately persuaded them to integrate their billing into the MyBundle.TV platform.
"Through this agreement, [Sling TV] will have a simplified sales acquisition flow for our target customer base, allowing more customers to enjoy our great service," Seth Van Sickel, the Senior Vice President of Product and Operations at Sling TV, said in a statement.
Cohen said the prices offered on MyBundle.TV for Sling TV will be the same market rates that the streamer charges elsewhere. When Sling TV offers a discount on its service to new or returning customers, those customers can take advantage of the deal when they sign up through the MyBundle.TV platform, Cohen affirmed.
In addition to Sling TV, MyBundle.TV allows customers to browse from more than 100 ad-supported and subscription-based streaming services. Of those, the company has affiliate agreements with around 30 services, which allows them to earn commissions on a subscription when a customer signs up through their platform.