Disney,\u00a0Fox\u00a0and\u00a0Warner Bros. Discovery\u00a0have called off plans to launch their sports streaming service, Venu, the companies said in a joint statement Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service,\u201d they said in the statement. \u201cIn an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels. We are proud of the work that has been done on Venu to date and grateful to the Venu staff, whom we will support through this transition period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venu was\u00a0first announced in February\u00a0and intended to combine the live sports assets of Fox, WBD and Disney-owned ESPN. It was initially slated to launch before the start of the NFL season in September, but was\u00a0delayed in part\u00a0by a\u00a0legal challenge from internet TV bundler Fubo,\u00a0which claimed the platform would be anticompetitive.<\/p>\n
Together Disney, Fox and WBD control more than 50% of all U.S. sports media rights, and at least 60% of all nationally broadcast U.S. sports rights, according to the judge on the antitrust case.<\/p>\n
The news that it would not launch came as a shock to Venu employees, who found out late Thursday night, according to people familiar with the matter. They believed they had a pathway forward to launch the service after Disney\u00a0agreed earlier this week\u00a0to merge its Hulu+ Live TV with\u00a0Fubo, settling all litigation over Venu.<\/p>\n
But the judge\u2019s response in Fubo\u2019s lawsuit questioned the legality of cable bundling in general, prompting Disney to strike the deal with Fubo, through which Disney would take 70% control of the resulting company. And two days ago, satellite providers DirecTV and Dish sent letters to federal court arguing that the legal questions brought up by the judge remained unanswered.<\/p>\n
Rather than risk an extended lawsuit that could jeopardize bundling in general \u2014 including Disney\u2019s efforts to bundle its own streaming entities (ESPN, Hulu and Disney+) \u2014 the three companies decided to pull the plug on Venu, according to people familiar with the company\u2019s decisions.<\/p>\n
Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s business model relies heavily on negotiating bundled carriage agreements for its many cable networks, including CNN, TNT, HGTV and Food Network.<\/p>\n
Disney is targeting a debut of ESPN \u201cFlagship,\u201d an all-inclusive ESPN streaming service, for August 2025. The still unnamed ESPN streaming service will including everything that airs on ESPN\u2019s linear network, unlike ESPN+.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s deal with Fubo, along with the company\u2019s recent carriage renewal with DirecTV, also gives the company new ways to package so-called skinny bundles \u2014 narrower selections of channels for less money. This was the idea behind Venu: selling a smaller number of linear channels for less money than traditional cable TV.<\/p>\n
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns CNBC parent NBCUniversal, is a co-owner of Hulu.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Disney,\u00a0Fox\u00a0and\u00a0Warner Bros. Discovery\u00a0have called off plans to launch their sports streaming service, Venu, the companies said in a joint statement Friday. \u201cAfter careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service,\u201d they said in the statement. \u201cIn an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}