Fox Nation adds movies to its subscription service
Fox Nation, Fox News Channel’s subscription streaming service, is branching out beyond news and political commentary by adding movies through a new deal with Warner Bros. Fox Nation subscribers will have access to six Clint Eastwood movies—including “Dirty Harry” and “Pale Rider”—along with two original documentaries throughout the month of August. The deal also includes a package of ’80s films including “The Outsiders” and “Tango & Cash,” which will appear on the platform in January 2022. Fox is speaking with all major Hollywood studios about bringing in more movies for Fox Nation subscribers.
The NPD Take:
- New deals such as this could help differentiate Fox Nation from its news streaming competitors and expand audience reach.
- There is a fine line between adding related content to increase engagement and distorting the brand image by branching out to far beyond the core content theme of the service. To date, FOX is straddling that line.
Sling TV raises prices for existing subscribers
After raising monthly rates for new subscribers earlier this year, Sling TV will institute the same price hike for existing subscribers starting in August making it an even playing field for all. The Sling Orange or Blue package will rise from $30 per month to $35. To justify the increase, there have been some upgrades to its service including increased DVR free storage from 10 hours to 50 hours, the ability to pause live content, a redesigned app which recently arrived on Roku devices and local channel integration into the Sling guide with Locast.
The NPD Take:
- Even with a modest increase, Sling TV is one of the lowest-priced vMVPDs available (YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and fuboTV all start at $65 per month) and thus remains an attractive option for both existing and new customers.
- Price increases will continue as distributors pass on increased costs to consumers. While Sling is still lower priced than traditional cable, the price to access live TV is slowly starting to creep back to cable/satellite levels.
Olympic ratings help boost Peacock streaming platform
Despite the Tokyo Games blemished by a yearlong delay, a recent surge in coronavirus cases and the exit of star athletes, the excitement of the Olympics has helped boost Peacock streaming signups. As of this week, the service had 54 million accounts and about 20 million active users, an increase from the end of March, when the company said it had 42 million sign-ups and 14 million active accounts. Comcast, which owns the rights to the Olympics through NBCUniversal, debuted Peacock last year to coincide with the event. With the event pushed off a year, the cable giant relied on original programming and older shows from the NBC library to attract customers.
The NPD Take:
- The increase in Peacock signups coupled with plans to spend big on original shows and sports programming this year, could help turn around Peacocks recent ad revenue losses.
- As linear pay TV continues to erode, Comcast will need to find additional ways to increase content to further boost Peacock signups.