Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch delivered a brief elegy this morning for shuttered sports streaming joint venture Venu, but the company is moving on with plans to launch a broad, new DTC service this calendar year.
On a post-earnings call with Wall Street analysts, Murdoch said the parent of Tubi and Fox Nation, is moving forward with something bigger designed to reach “the large population of cord- cutters and cord-nevers who are not in the traditional cable bundle.”
He promised more details later. But, asked if it would include news – Fox News is going gangbusters — as well as sports, he said yes, that it will in fact be “holistic” of tall he company’s current offerings.
This is a big deal for Fox, which has been adamant against rocking the cable bundle more than absolutely necessary. Murdoch indicated that the new service doesn’t have to clear additional rights.
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On Venu, Fox had partnered with Disney/ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery to launch the all-sports streamer last fall but was sidetracked by a lawsuit lobbed by Fubo. The smaller streamer settled with the three and basically agreed to sell itself to Disney, clearing the way for Venu but the three walked as other rivals threatened more legal headaches.
“Our only disappointment in sports is that we will not be moving forward with Venu.”
The Venu team did a tremendous about of “really genius” work preparing the service for launch but ultimately “legal distractions around the business “became increasingly difficult to bear,” Murdoch said. It’s not clear if any of that staff and infrastructure could be diverted to the new platform.
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