For months now Discovery’s CEO has been one of the loudest supporters of a sports-free bundle.
The idea is to team up with cable providers or maybe even streaming providers to offer a package that would include Discovery shows but no news or sports channels. In the past Discovery has hinted that this package would be in the $5 range.
Others rumors say Discovery and their soon-to-be-purchased Scripps networks are in talks withA&E, AMC, and Viacom for a $20 sports-free bundle. This would give the bundle a large number of channels for the price point, but many wonder how attractive it would be with no news or sports.
Now Discovery’s CEO is once again pushing the idea after their third quarter 2017 earnings report. David Zaslav, the CEO of Discovery, stopped short of saying what they would do other than to say they are evaluating all of their options from traditional cable to streaming services. (Currently, Discovery is only available on DIRECTV NOW and PlayStation Vue.)
The sports-free plan does face headwinds because it is reported that Comcast is threating to pull their sports channels from cable providers who offer a sports-free option.
Discovery saw a 3% drop in domestic pay-TV subscribers in the third quarter, and their stock price dropped nearly 10% Thursday after the report. Clearly Discovery is looking for ways to turn around this dropping subscriber count.
Source: CableFax
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