During FOX’s annual shareholder meeting, it was revealed that they are planning on launching a new subscription-based streaming service by the end of the year.

Very few details on the upcoming streaming service have been revealed, such as how much it’ll cost per month, where it’ll be available, or even a name. It will offer a “holistic” offering of Fox programming, which includes sports, TV shows, and FOX News.

In 2019, Disney spent over $70 billion on buying several assets from FOX, including 20th Century Studios, FX, National Geographic, Hotstar, and a 30% stake in Hulu. However, FOX continued to exist as its own separate business, which includes FOX News, FOX Sports, and the linear channel.

FOX CEO Lachlan Murdoch has said the service will be priced “relatively low” and offer “existing content and existing brands.” When asked about more details on the upcoming service, Lachlan said:

So on D2C, I should just start by explaining the strategy and going back to make it very clear that we see the traditional cable bundle as still the most value for our consumers, and then frankly, the most value for the company. So we are huge supporters of the traditional cable bundle, and we will always be.

But having said that, we do want to reach consumers wherever they are, and there’s a large population, obviously, that are now outside of the traditional cable bundle, either cord cutters or cord nevers. And we are designing and we’ll be able to say more about it shortly. But we are designing an offering to really target those cord-cutters and cord-nevers that are not traditionally in the cable bundle.

We don’t want, and we have no intention of turning a traditional distribution customer into our D2C customer. And so our subscriber expectations will be modest and we’re going to price the service accordingly.

And it’s also important to note with those modest expectations, we do not expect any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights cost. This service will be a package of our existing content on our existing brands, targeted consumers that are not currently in the bundle. So the incremental cost will be relatively low, certainly relative to what our peers have spent in this space.

And we’re excited to be able to talk about it more in the coming weeks and months. In terms of timing and launch, we’re certainly targeting a launch by the end of this calendar year.

Judging by the CEO’s comments, the streaming service will include live streams of linear channels such as FOX, FOX Sports, and FOX News.

One of the biggest issues facing this new FOX streaming service is that the company recently signed a new four-year contract extension to bring next-day episodes of FOX’s general entertainment onto Hulu and Hulu On Disney+. So, some of these titles may be shared between FOX and Hulu/Disney+. Also, there might be some issues with animated shows like “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers,” and “The Simpsons,” which Disney’s 20th Television makes.

Up until now, FOX has generally avoided being involved in the paid-streaming service business, instead focusing on its free platform, Tubi. However, following the recent news that the sports streaming service Venu Sports, which was a collaboration between FOX, ESPN, and Warner Brothers Discovery, fell through, the CEO shared some thoughts on Venu Sports.

Our only disappointment in sports is that we will not be moving forward with Venu, our sports streaming joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney. While the Venu team has done a tremendous amount of truly genius work preparing the digital platform for launch in the end, the legal distractions around the business became increasingly difficult to bear.

Venu was to be another distribution outlet for our brands to access consumers in the market wherever they are. And that is what we continue to be focused on, maximum distribution of our content, whether that be traditional, digital streaming, or our own D2C offering in the near future.

 

Roger’s Take: With linear television continuing to drop viewers, FOX has been holding out on launching a paid-subscription streaming service, instead building up Tubi instead. The addition of FOX Sports and FOX News seems to be the main focus, especially following the failure of the launch of Venu Sports. If this new streaming service does become successful, the likelihood of its next-day deal with Hulu/Disney+ being extended beyond 2029 might become less likely. 

What do you think about FOX launching a new streaming service? Let me know on social media!

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Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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