Fox will launch a news and sports streaming service later this year
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Fox Corp. has largely stayed out of the streaming wars, but that’s about to change.
Fox Corp. Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch told Wall Street analysts Tuesday that his company will launch a direct-to-consumer streaming product that will draw on its news and sports assets.
The announcement is another acknowledgment that pay TV subscription revenue is living on borrowed time, as consumers move away from cable and satellite video providers to streaming services.
Murdoch offered no details on a name or pricing for the service, which he said would be launched by the end of the year. He said the plan should not be taken as a sign that the company would abandon the traditional pay TV business.
“We see the traditional bundle as still the most value for our consumers and the most value for the company,” Murdoch said. “But having said that, we do want to reach consumers wherever they are and there is a large population that are now outside of the traditional cable bundle, either cord-cutters or cord-nevers.”
Murdoch said the expectations for the planned streaming service are “modest.” He said it will package existing content from Fox News and Fox Sports and will not incur any additional rights costs.
The latest development comes as Paramount Global lawyers engaged in preliminary talks to settle the lawsuit Trump filed in October over his objection to edits to the ’60 Minutes’ interview with Harris.
Fox’s only streaming properties are the ad-supported service Tubi and Fox Nation, a $7.99-per-month service operated by Fox News, which has around 2 million subscribers. Fox Nation is mostly entertainment and documentary shows with several Fox News programs offered a day after they run on cable.
Fox’s cable business remains robust. Second-quarter financial results showed the company generated revenue of $2.17 billion, up by more than 30% from a year ago. But the universe of pay-TV homes — now around 70 million in the U.S. — continues to decline at a rate of nearly 10% a year.
Murdoch was a staunch supporter of Venu, the joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery and Walt Disney Co. that would have offered a streaming service with channels that carry their sports properties. But Venu never got off the ground after a legal challenge from Fubo, which offers a similar service.
After a court ruled that Venu was anticompetitive, the venture was shut down following a settlement agreement. Disney took a majority stake in Fubo and is merging it with its Hulu Live TV service.
“The legal distractions around the business became increasingly difficult to bear,” Murdoch said.
But Fox will be a latecomer to a field where some of the major players are still losing billions of dollars.
“No one wants to be left behind when streaming replaces linear,” said EMarketer senior analyst Ross Benes. “But the subscription streaming market is already crowded; another entrant will make competition fiercer and profits more difficult to obtain consistently.”
Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.
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