BELLEVUE, Wash.—T-Mobile’s TVision is on its way out, as the mobile provider has announced that it is set to shutter its six-month-old pay-TV streaming service and replace it with new partnerships with YouTube TV and Philo.
The TVision service offered two different packages, TVision Live and Vibe. Vibe was a $10/month entertainment-only package, while Live was a more expensive, more traditional bundle of channels. T-Mobile will stop providing these services as of April 29.
Instead of offering its own TVision Live and Vibe packages, T-Mobile is making YouTube TV its premium live TV service—announcing a multi-year partnership with Google, YouTube TV’s parent company—while Philo will serve as its base live TV service. The services will be available on the TVision Hub streaming device T-Mobile provided customers.
“With our TV software provider encountering some financial challenges and with our broader, strategic partnerships with Google and Philo, we saw an opportunity to deliver unique value to our customers and strengthen the TVision initiative with the best partners,” wrote Mike Sievert, T-Mobile CEO, in a blog post.
The financial problems that Sievert mentioned refers to MobiTV, which provided the software on which TVision was based. MobiTV filed for bankruptcy in early March. T-Mobile is providing MobiTV $15.5 billion in bailout money.
Now, T-Mobile is offering deals for its TVision customers to switch over to either YouTube TV or Philo. Both TVision Live and Vibe customers can get $10 off YouTube TV ($54.99) and/or Philo ($10) every month. In addition, TVision Live customers can get a free month of YouTube TV to start and three free months of YouTube Premium. TVision Vibe customers can get a free month of Philo.
“Our experience has shown us consumers need an advocate in this space,” Sievert wrote. “They don’t want more streaming services—they want help buying and navigating these services that already exist.”
For more information, visit T-Mobile’s blog.
