Fox Corp announced it will enter the direct-to-consumer streaming market by launching a subscription service by the end of the year. The move comes as the company, known mainly for its news and sports on traditional TV, has lagged behind other media giants in the streaming space.
On a quarterly earnings call, CEO Lachlan Murdoch explained that the new streaming service is not meant to replace Fox’s traditional cable bundle. He added that the company is currently designing the app and will share more details in the coming months. Murdoch confirmed that the service is expected to include both sports and news content.
Fox has mostly stayed on the sidelines of streaming, aside from its Fox Nation app which offers exclusive programming and on-demand Fox News primetime shows and its free, ad-supported service Tubi. For instance, Fox will broadcast the Super Bowl on traditional TV, while Tubi will air the NFL’s biggest game for the first time.
This move into subscription-based streaming comes after Fox, along with Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, dropped plans in January for a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu. The three companies had planned to pool their sports content into one service, but legal hurdles delaying a fall 2024 launch led them to abandon the project. Unlike its partners, Fox did not have another way to deliver its sports content outside of the cable TV bundle. In contrast, Warner Bros. Discovery offers live sports on Max, and Disney’s ESPN provides ESPN+ along with a planned direct-to-consumer ESPN service, reportedly set to launch in August as ESPN “Flagship.” Fox’s Murdoch referred to the end of Venu as the company’s “only disappointment in sports.”
Lachlan Murdoch, CEO, Fox Corp, said, “We’re huge supporters of the traditional cable bundle, and we always will 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.”
Murdoch also added, “will be modest, and we’re going to price the service accordingly. Expect to have any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights cost and will simply package its existing content, keeping the cost of launching the platform relatively low.”
Murdoch highlighted the rise of skinny packages from traditional pay TV providers, saying these trends, which usually focus on sports and news, could benefit Fox’s portfolio. “We’re very pleased with this trend of the bundle. It’s financially, economically positive for us,” said Murdoch on Tuesday. “We would hope that this bundle will be attractive to the cordless customers the cord-cutters and cord-nevers.”
After selling its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019, Fox has focused on sports and news content. While the company has maintained stable viewership and advertising revenue during a recent ad market slump, questions remain about whether its late entry into subscription streaming can compete with services that spend billions on original programming and exclusive rights.