Airbox TV service shutting down

[dhett]

Seriously, how many of you even knew that it existed?

Ion Media Networks is shutting down its premium movie service, Airbox TV, on October 31, according to a subscriber, who received the following text from Airbox TV after paying his bill:

Airbox: Your TV service will automatically continue at no charge through Oct 31, 2017, when Airbox is ceasing its operations. Thank you!

Outside of advertising on my local ION TV station, I saw almost no advertising for it, and none until recently, even though I had reported the service as part of the KPPX-TV data stream almost six years ago.

Aside from their lack of advertising, Airbox's product couldn't compete with services like Roku and even streaming services offered by the same movie networks carried on Airbox.

Initially, Airbox programming was geared heavily toward Spanish-speaking subscribers, as Hispanic households get their television over-the-air in far greater numbers than their Anglo counterparts. However, Airbox's channel lineup was constantly evolving before settling on the current lineup, with mostly premium movie networks.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Airbox is also here in Houston and had very little publicity outside of commercials on ION's KPXB. I do recall seeing some print ads. Guess it will free up some bandwidth for an additional subchannel or two.

Has anyone actually seen the Airbox signals? Always wondered what the video quality was with all the compressed MPEG-4 streams.

 

[dhett]

Back when it first began in Nov. 2011, their barker channel was in the clear. They used it to air UFC-139, an MMA match. The video quality was surprisingly good, but as the subscriber was quoted in the original post, not as good as the streaming options. Since ATSC 3.0 is going to be built on the H.265 standard, it looks like Airbox would have become quickly obsolete anyway. Stinks for all those who bought the receivers...both people.

 

[Sammi Brie]

I think both the improved quality of streaming video, and ATSC 3.0 (especially channel sharing) did this one in. Took them forever to formally launch it, and by the time they did, it might have been too little too late.

 

[1069_KIFR]

Seriously, how many of you even knew that it existed?

Ion Media Networks is shutting down its premium movie service, Airbox TV, on October 31, according to a subscriber, who received the following text from Airbox TV after paying his bill:



Outside of advertising on my local ION TV station, I saw almost no advertising for it, and none until recently, even though I had reported the service as part of the KPPX-TV data stream almost six years ago.

Aside from their lack of advertising, Airbox's product couldn't compete with services like Roku and even streaming services offered by the same movie networks carried on Airbox.

Initially, Airbox programming was geared heavily toward Spanish-speaking subscribers, as Hispanic households get their television over-the-air in far greater numbers than their Anglo counterparts. However, Airbox's channel lineup was constantly evolving before settling on the current lineup, with mostly premium movie networks.

Will it become Cablebox??