In this week's rundown of recent news items for cord-cutters: ESPN to launch OTT service in 2018, CBS All Access expanding to Canada, NBC pulls plug on Seeso, Verizon struggles to launch OTT service, and more.
ESPN will be launching a video streaming service in early 2018 according to a press release from parent company Disney.
"The ESPN-branded multi-sport service will offer a robust array of sports programming, featuring approximately 10,000 live regional, national, and international games and events a year, including Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, Grand Slam tennis, and college sports. Individual sport packages will also be available for purchase, including MLB.TV, NHL.TV and MLS Live."A new Disney-branded streaming service is also planned for 2019 according to the same press release. "The new Disney-branded service will become the exclusive home in the U.S. for subscription-video-on-demand viewing of the newest live action and animated movies from Disney and Pixar, beginning with the 2019 theatrical slate, which includes Toy Story 4, the sequel to Frozen, and The Lion King from Disney live-action, along with other highly anticipated movies. Disney will also make a significant investment in an annual slate of original movies, TV shows, short-form content and other Disney-branded exclusives for the service. Additionally, the service will feature a vast collection of library content, including Disney and Pixar movies and Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD television programming." At the same time, Disney will pull all its titles from Netflix.
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Facebook announced the launch of Watch, "a new platform for shows," in a recent news release. Daniel Danker, Director of Product, wrote that "Watch is a platform for all creators and publishers to find an audience, build a community of passionate fans, and earn money for their work... We think Watch will be home to a wide range of shows, from reality to comedy to live sports." Watch is currently available only to "a limited group of people in the US."
"Streaming isn't just hurting cable companies anymore," says Peter A. McKay, writing for Vice. He points to weak forecasts and a plunging stock price at Viacom, which "underscores how price pressure is rippling through all corners of the TV industry, causing some traditional content producers to suffer as well."
CBS All Access will expand to Canada and other international markets by next year according to a report from Variety, which also notes that "CBS All Access and the Showtime standalone service are poised to exceed 4 million subscribers in total by the end of this year."
Streaming is in danger of being ruined by turning it into cable warns TechCrunch author Brian Heater. Referencing the news from Disney that we discussed above, and citing other examples of companies pulling their titles from services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, he says that "It's a growing trend toward fragmentation of streaming services that will ultimately work against the best interests of consumers. A world in which every film studio and television station has its own proprietary offering sounds like a bit of a nightmare — worse even than the most convoluted of cable plans. It's a sort of death by a thousand cuts, each studio and TV station emptying viewers bank accounts, $5 or $10 at a time."
Less than two years after launch, NBCUniversal is pulling the plug on Seeso, its comedy-oriented streaming service that offered original productions and reruns of NBC shows. The announcement was made in a post on Seeso's Facebook page, but more information is available from FierceCable, including a post-mortem from a Barclays analyst.
Verizon is having trouble launching an OTT service to compete with Sling TV, DIRECTV NOW, and similar streaming TV services. Advertising Age reports that Verizon is struggling to sign networks up for their planned online TV offering. "A plan to start selling packages with dozens of channels has slipped to fall from summer and could be put off further."
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