1. DirecTV’s MySports Is Not The New Venu
DirecTV announced a new service called MySports this week, and much of the known universe was quick to pronounce it “the new Venu.”
It’s not.
It’s a sports-oriented vMVPD bundle that includes Disney, WBD, Fox, NBCU and is (allegedly) working to get Paramount, thus providing sports fans with all the linear TV they will need.
The difference is that unlike Venu, which was only going to show actual games and maybe some sports-oriented shoulder content, MySports will be a standard issue vMVPD, with the live feed from 40 broadcast and cable channels available for $70/month.
Why It Matters
A sports-focused vMVPD from DirecTV makes sense in that it avoids all of the antitrust issues that a product like Venu brings to the table.
Mostly because DirecTV does not own any of the properties in the bundle—it’s merely a repackager.
The issue with Venu was that the companies doing the distribution were also the companies with rights to the broadcasts. That was what allowed Fubo to successfully sue them. (For more on this, you can read my friend Steve Salop’s piece in U Chicago’s ProMarket. Salop is a Professor of Economics and Law Emeritus at Georgetown Law School who specializes in antitrust and helped walk me through the issues. You’ll also note that TVREV is linked in the piece.)
For the TL;DR version, the article posits that Fubo’s initial lawsuit paralleled a case from 40 years ago, where the major movie studios attempted to aggregate their content into a single subscription service called Premiere, which the courts deemed anti-competitive.
Thus, MySports is exempt from antitrust concerns since all its sports content is licensed from third parties, whereas a Fubo bundle might raise concerns since Disney would own both the actual rights and 70 percent of Fubo, which could result in anticompetitive practices.
Disney will also have to wait until the deal actually closes in order to launch its Fubo bundle since, Salop informed me, the courts and the FTC do not look favorably on “gun jumping” or acting on a proposed merger before it is finalized.
Meaning DirecTV will have an advantage for the next several months.
Some other notable points about MySports:
It will only be available in 24 markets at launch, those markets being the ones where the networks have their O&Os (owned and operated affiliates).
Independently-owned affiliates will need to be negotiated with separately and those negotiations can be prickly, especially in instances where the affiliate has RSN (regional sports network)-like rights to local MLB, NBA and/or NHL teams. As the RSN market implodes, these sorts of local broadcast arrangements are becoming more common.
Then, of course, there is Paramount and those all-important CBS NFL games. While both sides are alleged to be in talks, that and a Metrocard swipe….
So there’s that and the fact that the app does not solve the issue of all those games that are only available via Amazon, Apple, and (soon) Peacock.
Then of course there’s the bigger issue of who exactly the app is aimed at.
To repeat a TVREV trope, there are, broadly speaking, two types of fans: fans of a particular team (“RSN Fans”) and fans of a particular sport (“ESPN Fans”), with much overlap between the two.
While ESPN fans will be happy with this sort of service, RSN fans will not, because, as of now, MySports does not include access to any RSNs. And while some RSNs have indeed launched their own streaming services, most have not, meaning the only way to access them is via a traditional bundle.
And if you have a traditional bundle, you have no need for MySports or MyFubo or any other sort of sports skinny bundle.
Finally, there’s the price. At $70/month, MySports is just $17/month cheaper than DirecTV’s main vMVPD bundle, DirectTV Stream, which offers over 100 channels AND over 30 RSNs… if you bump up to the $115/month package - hat tip to Jason Cohen of MyBundle for that note. But that’s a $45/month difference just to get an RSN. So you’d better really love your home team.
So if you are an “RSN Fan” there’s not much reason to downscale from the $115 version of Stream, and even if you’re not, if you’ve got a bunch of non-sports fans in the house, those extra 60 channels may be worth an extra $17/month for the $87 version.
That said, I still think it’s a very smart move on DirecTV’s part as it puts them on the radar of many potential cable-box-droppers, many of whom will find the $115/month Stream, with its multiple RSN options, a much better replacement for their current cable package than YouTube TV or Hulu Live TV.
So there’s that too.
What You Need To Do About It
If you’re DirecTV, well done. The timeliness of the launch means you’ve got a ton of free PR for MySports. Now you just need to make sure your marketing materials match your offering. That means making sure that potential subscribers know all about those RSN options on Stream and that they don’t need a satellite dish to subscribe.
If you’re Disney, just sit tight. It’s not like you’re losing money on all those carriage fees DirecTV is paying you for ESPN and ABC. Just make sure your lawyers do a thorough job of reviewing potential antitrust issues and hope that the new administration takes as lax a view of them as expected, but also be aware that VP-elect Vance is a big fan of current FTC Commissioner Lina Khan and her strong antitrust POV, and you never know which way the wind will blow with Trump.
If you’re a sports fan, things will get a bit easier. There are still going to be big gaps as rights move around, as John Cassillo outlined this week in TVREV, and that’s going to be an issue for a while as everything settles into place. But at least the industry seems to be aware of your issues, which is a good first step.
2. RedNote Is Not The New TikTok
Much has been made this week of the seeming popularity of RedNote, a Chinese-based video app that rose to the top of the App Store charts in light of the potential TikTok ban.
The app, which, unlike TikTok, is legal in China, has an interface that is 100% in Mandarin, but that has not stopped influencers like the journalist Taylor Lorenz from proclaiming it the New New Thing.
In fact, I became aware of it from a Bluesky thread a prominent CNN media reporter reposted, a thread that Chairman Xi himself would likely have rejected as being too over the top in its espousal of pro-Chinese propaganda.
The money line of the thread—which is all about how cool and fun and welcoming the Chinese users are, and how Americans have been “duped” by propaganda because China is actually a virtual paradise—is something to the effect of “someone asked them about what their government is doing to the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but we were all like “oh, our government did bad things to the Native Americans too, so who are we to talk and it’s like we’re all cool and our governments suck.” (No mention of the author’s new Chinese friends agreeing with her sentiment.)
The post garnered over 8K likes and while BlueSky is still in many ways “If Portlandia was a social media site”, sources as diverse as The Free Press, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been picking up on the RedNote story as well, pointing out that the app’s Mandarin name, Xiaohongshu, is actually a reference to Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book of Cultural Revolution-inspiring sayings.
So much for a vibe shift.
Why It Matters
RedNote is not the only Chinese app that is lining up to replace TikTok. There’s also Lemon8, another ByteDance creation. (ByteDance owns TikTok) as well as American apps like Clapper and Flip, all of which are at the top of the App Store chart this week.
This matters to the TV industry for two reasons: TikTok is a major competitor for the time and attention of Gens Z and Alpha and is a useful vehicle to promote TV shows and streaming apps.
Should a ban go into effect, much of that audience will be up for grabs and while it’s unlikely most of them will decide they need to start watching more prime time network TV, the industry has a real opportunity to make more of an effort to connect with them, while marketing teams need to keep an eye out for what is going to replace TikTok.
At present, this fire drill is seeming increasingly unnecessary, as Trump has taken the extraordinary step of inviting TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew to his inauguration and conventional wisdom seems to be that even though the Supreme Court has upheld the lower court’s decision to effectively ban TikTok, Trump will issue some sort of stay of execution in the form of an executive order.
Or that Elon Musk will buy TikTok.
Or MrBeast.
Point being, it’s unlikely to go away in the short term or even the long term.
And the App Store will go back to normal in a few weeks.
What You Need To Do About It
If you are a streaming service (or even a network) getting rights to a couple of linear channels of TIkTok influences is not a bad move. You can organize it around a topic and an hour of new stuff a day will be plenty. But I suspect that, if promoted correctly, it would do gangbusters and low key help your rizz with Gens Z and Alpha and the companies that advertise to them.
If you are in charge of propaganda for the CCP, hire that Bluesky poster. (Or perhaps, as I suspect, you already have.)
If you are Gen Z or Gen Alpha, TikTok is already the red hot beating heart of your life. Just know that nothing lasts forever and Facebook once held the same control over your parents and grandparents.
Things change.
Alan Wolk is co-founder and lead analyst at the consulting firm TV[R]EV. He is the author of the best-selling industry primer, Over The Top: How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry. Wolk frequently speaks about changes in the television industry, both at conferences and to anyone who’ll listen.
Week in Review is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.