TV & Video Week in Review

Report Type: 
Week In Review
Overview

Tubi adds live sports streaming

Fox-owned free streaming service, Tubi is partnering with Fox Sports to launch “Sports on Tubi” by adding 10 live streaming sports channels to its lineup including programming for NFL, MLB, NASCAR, college football and Real Madrid soccer.  The programming will encompass sports news, live games, highlights and replays with more channels coming in the next year.  “Sports on Tubi” will initially be featured on the app supported by Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Android devices.

The NPD Take:

  • Adding live sports programming to Tubi will help the service stand out from the other FAST channels, bring in more ad revenue and allow for increased engagement.
  • Live sports is one of the remaining bastions for traditional pay TV. As free services expand their sports content offerings it will become increasingly difficult to create value for consumers to stick with pay TV. However, this will require live in market games for the major sports leagues and we’re not quite there yet.

 

 

T-Mobile offering one year of free Apple TV+

T-Mobile is now offering one year of free Apple TV+ to customers with the Magenta, Magenta Plus, Sprint Unlimited Plus and Premium and T-Mobile Small Business plans. This is in addition to offering ‘Netflix on Us’ for premium Magenta plan subscribers. The Apple TV+ offer went into effect on August 25.  The move comes ahead of the popular Apple TV+ show The Morning Show which debuts its second season on September 24.

The NPD Take:

  • T-Mobile remains a leader in value-add bundles. After a scrapped venture to launch its own streaming service, the carrier continues to lean into bundling entertainment content with the likes of Netflix, YouTube TV and Philo. Expect more to come.
  • For Apple, the move signals continued efforts to expand their subscriber base while they bolster their content offering.

Curiosity coming to FuboTV

Fact-based streaming service Curiosity Channel and VOD service Curiosity Stream are headed to FuboTV after the two companies reached a multi-year carriage deal. Curiosity recently announced its content reached 20 million customers in Q2. The linear channel will be available to FuboTV’s US subscribers while Curiosity Stream will be available in the US and Canada.

The NPD Take:

  • FuboTV continues to diversify its content offering to attract a wider subscriber audience as they expand beyond sports and solidify their space as a player in the vMVPD space.
  • As such, Curiosity continues its strategy of partnering with pay TV operators to grow their base. A move that is both working and is so 1980s.