Thursday marked two major launches in the streaming space, with Disney’s flagship direct-to-consumer ESPN app and Fox’s DTC Fox One streamer each debuting.
It represents the first time that the media companies are each making their traditional cable linear networks - and particularly high-profile live sports just ahead of the NFL season kickoff – available in respective direct-to-consumer monthly subscription offerings.
Live sports have been seen as one of the remaining stalwarts buoying a shrinking pay TV ecosystem amid continued cord cutting, but at least one traditional distributor isn’t looking to be left behind.
Charter Communications over the past couple of years has undertaken a revamped approach to carriage agreements and bundling media companies’ DTC streaming offerings within pay TV packages at no extra cost to consumers.
That effort continued today, with the unlimited version of the new ESPN app (which retails for $29.99 per month and also includes ESPN+) now available at no additional cost to customers with eligible Spectrum TV plans. In addition, Hulu is now included for customers with qualifying video plans, alongside Disney+, which together retail for $10.99 per month as part of a Disney-delivered bundle. Both additions were previously announced but are now officially available.
The ESPN DTC includes the sports brand's live linear channels, providing access to thousands of live sports and original programming across the ESPN portfolio.
Fox One, which retails for $19.99 per month, is also now available to Spectrum TV customers at no extra cost as part of the operator’s revamped Seamless Entertainment experience.
The streaming service features all of Fox’s linear pay TV channels across sports, news and entertainment, including local broadcast. For more on the Fox One strategy and user experience, read here.
Starting in October, the ESPN and Fox One services will be available in a DTC bundle priced at $39.99 per month.
Charter, meanwhile, recently made it easier for customers to activate and manage SVODs and streaming services included in its pay TV package with the launch of new self-serve digital tools.
Charter’s bundling strategy began with a new model after resolution of a carriage dispute with Disney in 2023 and has extended to relationships with nearly all major programmers. The operator now offers TV customers a menu of streaming services at no extra cost, which collectively equate to a streaming retail value of more than $100 per month. In addition to ESPN, Hulu, Disney+ and Fox One, other apps include ad plan versions of AMC+, HBO Max, Paramount+, ViX, and Peacock.
The approach appears to be working as Charter in Q2 significantly stemmed its pay TV subscriber bleeding – losing just 80,000 in Q2 – which marked its best video customer quarter since 2021 and compared to 408,000 residential video losses in Q2 2024.
That said, it wasn't immediately clear the exact nature of or whether there’s a specific agreement with Charter for the inclusion of Fox One. Prior arrangements with programmers involved a wholesale element and in some cases commitments from Charter to market DTC apps to its customer base, including broadband-only.
Fox One essentially makes all of Fox’s traditional pay TV programming available in a direct-to-consumer app. But unlike other streaming services included in Charter TV packages, Fox at launch said that consumers who already pay for Fox content through a pay TV provider will be able to access Fox One through authenticated pay TV login credentials – in a somewhat similar vein as TV Everywhere apps that used to be available from different distributors.
StreamTV Insider reached out to Charter, which declined to provide additional information outside of the press release.
During an event for press previewing the new streamer, Fox One CEO Pete Distad fielded questions around distributors and said he believes the company is going to market with a pretty “distributor fair and friendly approach,” in part by not undercutting price and having a significant amount of differentiated programming.
“We’re actually going to be distributing Fox One potentially through some of these channels over time. We’re giving them access to all of the programming, their customers don’t have to come in and buy it again,” he said, which alludes to the model Charter has pursued. “This is all stuff that up until recently, wasn’t the way that it was done.”
In addition to Charter offering Fox One, the streamer has been added to Prime Video’s Amazon Channels, where it’s available for purchase at retail price and where Fox hopes to tap into the target audience of cord-cutters and cord-nevers.
“It is a priority at FOX to ensure that our News, Sports, and Entertainment content is available wherever our customers want to watch and to provide them with as seamless an experience as possible, especially in seeking to address the fragmentation of sports in streaming,” said Distad, in a statement. “The Amazon Channels platform has a significant sized audience of cord-cutters and cord-nevers that want access to our programming, so we are glad we can offer them yet another option at launch.”
Article updated with response from Charter.