Fox has been one of the leaders in online streaming compared to the other alphabet networks. Now it looks like a 6% increase in profit from online streams has grabbed their attention.
“We certainly feel good were we are with multiyear agreements. Amazon seems to be stepping up. Hulu is becoming a more aggressive player in the marketplace. We’re excited about the broader developments in the OTT space,” Chase Carey COO said.
The COO of Fox said they still view subscription streaming as a subset of their industry but pointed out it is a growing subset. With the new deal with Amazon and new platforms like FoxNow Fox is greatly expanding viewers ability to streaming as their content as revenues from streaming grows. These deals puts Fox shows on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, Fox.com, and FoxNow.
When asked about streaming content and ads Carey said “Today, we’re not measuring it closely enough. We’re not exploiting it closely enough. We’re not targeting well enough. To me it’s an enormous opportunity and challenge,”.
It is never a easy for a massive industry with decades of a profitable model to change its course. Hopefully we will continue to see Fox move in the right direction away from selling to cable and sell directly to consumers. We do not expect to see any sudden shift from the major networks but every year the ship turns a little more away from cable owners and closer to the subscribers.