There are a few options in the U.S. when it comes to streaming live TV. Sling TV and Fubo are two of them. They represent the less popular of the four major choices in terms of total number of subscribers (YouTube TV and Hulu With Live TV remain atop the list), but they are still very much worth considering.
Fubo is more of a traditional service. You pick a plan, pay your fees, and get a bunch of channels — quite a few, in fact — though whether they’re the channels you want will require a little further reading. Sling TV is a little more complicated and requires more work on your part. It starts out far less expensive, but it’s also pretty easy to see that monthly bill add up.
In any event, the important things are still important: Pick a service that has the channels you actually want to watch and at a price you’re willing to pay.
The good news? Sling TV and Fubo are available on pretty much any modern connected device. So, at least that part’s easy.
Plans and price
Fubo has a habit of adjusting its plans without telling anyone, so things may have changed. (Including names and prices.) But you’ll get the gist.
Fubo has two main tiers of service. Fubo Pro comes with 156 channels, 1,000 hours of recording, and you can watch on up to 10 devices at once. That runs $80 a month. Fubo Elite takes things up to 222 channels for $90 a month and throws in 4K events (when available). Both come with $20 off your first month of service.
Sling TV does things a little differently. Instead of just one track of channels, it splits them into two. There’s Sling Orange and Sling Blue. They run $40 each or $55 if you want both. But even if you get both, you’ll still have far fewer channels than you will with Fubo. But you’ll also be paying far less.
Sling then bolsters things with optional add-ons it calls “Extras.” It’s not quite the same thing as a la carte TV, in which you only pay for individual channels, but it’s just about as close as you can get.
Channels
On paper, Fubo has more channels than Sling TV. A lot more. But sit down and look at it, and you’ll find that a lot of them are more of the sort that you’d find on a free ad-supported streaming service.
Here’s how things look as of early 2024:
Fubo channels
Again, these channels can change at any time. Currently, Fubo has:
ABC, ABC Localish, ABC News Live, ACC Network, AccuWeather, ACL Cornhole TV, Animal Planet, AXS TV Now, Bally Sports, beIN Sports, BET, Big 10 Network, Bike Mag, Billard TV, Bleav Football, Bloomberg Television, Bounce, Boxing TV, Bravo, CBS, CBS News, CBS Sports Network, Cleo TV, CMT, CNBC, Comedy Central, Comedy Dynamics, Comet, Court TV, Court TV Legendary Trials, Crackle, Curiosity Channel
Dabl, Dark Matter TV, Discovery, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Dove Channel, E!, EarthxTV, ESPN, ESPN2, Estrella TV, Fail Army, Family Time, Filmrise Unsolved Mysteries, Food Network, Forensic Files, Fox, Fox Business, Fox Live Now, Fox News, Fox Soul, Fox Weather, Freeform, FS1, FS2, Fubo Movies, Fubo Radio, Fubo Sports, Fusto TV, FXX, FXM, Galavision, Get TV, Glory, Golf Channel, Great American Family, Grit
Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Family, Hallmark Mystery, HGTV, InFast, Investigation Discovery, Ion Mystery, Ion Plus, Jewelry TV, Law & Crime, Local Now, LSN, Magnolia Network, Marquee Sports Network, Maximum Effort Channel, Moto America TV, MotorTrend, MSNBC, MTV, National Geographic, NBC, NBC News Now, NBC Sports, NBCLX, News12 New York, Newsmax, NewsNation, NFL Network, Nick Jr., Nickelodeon
Origin Sports, OWN, Oxygen True Crime, Pac 12, Paramount Network, PBTV, Perfect Game, Pocket Watch, Pop TV, Popcorn Flix, Powder, Professional Fishing League, QVC, Real Madrid.tv, Ryan Friends, Scripps News, SEC Network, Skateboarding, Smithsonian Channel, Snowboarder, SpeedVision, Sports News Highlights, SportStak, Start TV, Surfer, Swerve Combat, SYFY
T2, Tastemade, Tastemade Home, Tastemade Travel, Telemundo, TG Junior, The Big Dish, The Bob Ross Channel, The Design Network, The First, The Pet Collective, The Weather Channel, TLC, Toon Goggles, Travel Channel, True Crime, TUDN, TUDN Extra, TV Land, Unimas, Universal Kids, Universo, Univision, USA, VH-1, Women’s Sports Network
Sling TV channels
Channels that are exclusive to Sling Orange: Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, FreeForm, and Motor Trend.
Channels that are exclusive to Sling Blue: Bravo, Discovery Channel, E!, FS1, FX, Fox News, HLN, MSNBC, NFL Network, National Geographic, SYFY, TLC, USA, and TruTV.
The following channels are available on either track: A&E, AMC, AXS TV, BBC America, BET, Bloomberg, Charge!, CNN, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Comet, Food Network, Fuse, HGTV, History Channel, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, Local Now, MGM+ Drive-In, Nick Jr., QVC, TBS, TNT, Travel Channel, and Vice.
Local channels
Both Fubo and Sling TV have local channels. You’ll want to double-check that you actually get them where you live, though. Fubo has all the main ones — ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. Sling, on the other hand, only has CBS, Fox, and NBC in a limited number of markets. And it doesn’t have CBS at all.
However, Sling TV will push something called AirTV, which is basically a branded over-the-air antenna and tuner. You’ll hook it up and scan for channels, and everything appears in the Sling TV live guide.
Fubo definitely wins here for the sake of simplicity.
Add-ons
Sling TV and Fubo each have a good number of add-ons (not counting the Extras that will bring Sling’s channel listings closer to par). And each has premiums like Showtime, STARZ, and NBA League Pass.
Fubo will also let you buy extra recording storage — $10 a month gets you 250 hours, and $17 a month will get you 1,000 hours. Sling TV comes with 50 hours for free. If you need more than that, another $5 a month will get you 200 hours.
Fubo also lets you buy the ability to stream on up to 10 devices at once (and two on the road) for $10 a month. It calls that option “unlimited screens” for some reason. The “Family Share” add-on lets you share your account with up to three people at once, away from your home network, for $6 a month.
Total subscribers
Fubo has never been the biggest streaming service. But unlike Sling TV, it’s actually been growing. Ever so slowly, perhaps, but the trend is up and to the right.
Sling TV at the end of 2023 had some 2.06 million subscribers, continuing its slow decline. (It peaked at 2.68 million in the third quarter of 2019 and hasn’t been that high since.)
Fubo, meanwhile, finished 2023 at 1.6 million subscribers, up from 1.44 million at the end of 2022 and 1.13 million at the end of 2021. That’s not huge growth, but it is growth.
