Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav On How Sports Streaming Bundle With Disney And Fox Will Help Viewers: “You Won’t Be Thinking, ‘What Channel Is It On?'”
deadline.comIn his first public comments about a planned sports streaming joint venture with Disney and Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said it will increase the companies’ reach and not add to their cord-cutting woes.
The JV partners “have a very rich target” of 60 million-plus sports fans who are not in the pay-TV ecosystem, Zaslav said during WBD’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We’ll be able to go after those we are missing.” The new service, whose name, pricing and launch date have not been announced, is “very modern,” Zaslav added, and will reduce friction in the viewing experience. “Today, when people are thinking, ‘What channel should I watch?
What channel is my sport on?’ You’ll be able to go to this new product, this new app-based product, and if you watch the baseball playoffs, you’ll watch all of them and you won’t be thinking, ‘What channel is it on?’ Hockey, you’ll watch all of the hockey playoffs, right through the Stanley Cup.” The sports bundle will offer linear streams of 14 combined networks operated by the JV partners. “We think it coexists quite effectively” with traditional linear offerings, Zaslav said. “We don’t see a lot of people un-subscribing to cable in order to get this.” Noting he has reviewed prototypes for the service, Zaslav said, “We’re pretty far along.” At another point in the call, the exec reiterated his belief that increased bundling of streaming services is inevitable, especially given the “confusing” state of the fragmented landscape.
The goal of creating bundles like one WBD recently formed with Max and Netflix via Verizon, is to create a “simpler, easier, less anxious experience for people to find the content that they want and have it be simpler and fluid.” Tech giants and
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