Jesse Watters may not be known for his athletic ability, but he may still be popular among streaming sports fans.
When Fox Corp. launched its new Fox One streaming service last fall, executives braced for a wave of sign-ups from cord cutters looking to stream the company’s popular fall football package. They reasoned that once the pork skin season is over, activity may decrease for a while.
Instead, Fox executives are surprised to find that football fans are sticking around for the chance to check out Fox News Channel shows like “Jesse Watters Prime Time” and “The Five.”
In the company’s most recent fiscal third quarter, “more than half of Fox One’s viewership” came from people watching the news, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on a conference call with investors. He added: “So far, we haven’t seen a lot of churn within Fox One, so we’re very happy about that.” Fox has not released total subscriber numbers for the initial service.
Fox’s efforts to cater to a digitally savvy demographic and increase the profitability of its news business will no doubt be noticed by other mainstream TV news stations. Versant’s MS NOW plans to launch a new subscription service targeting a “community” of users, company executives said on a recent investor call. Warner Bros. Discovery’s CNN estimates its digital users are about 10 years younger than viewers of its flagship cable business. The company says subscribers to its new subscription service are “ahead” of its goals.
All of these efforts come amid predictions that cable subscriptions will likely continue to decline. Subscribers at all three of the nation’s largest cable news stations are expected to decline 7% to 9% between the end of 2024 and the end of 2026, according to market research firm Kagan, part of S&P Global Intelligence.
New concepts abound as TV news mainstays work to meet younger audiences in a new environment. Trey Yingst, a foreign correspondent for Fox News, offers dispatches via TikTok. NBC News poll guru Steve Kornacki continues to poll via his streaming “Kornacki Cam” during primaries and other races where he may not be able to get ahead of the show on the NBC broadcast network.
Fox News Channel remains a powerful player in the modern media ecosystem, but like its rivals, it has traditionally been seen as appealing to older consumers who are more accustomed to watching television. Now, FOX News may be attracting more attention from young people.
“We’ve clearly identified a customer who is either a sports fan who started watching news or a news fan who used to watch sports,” said Pete Distad, CEO of Fox’s streaming business. “The typical news customer comes back three and a half times a week, and they spend more than 10 hours watching FOX News Channel.”
Executives estimate that the average age of Fox One subscribers is “younger than traditional cable customers,” Distad said, adding that the typical user is “not as young as mobile and social-first Alpha. It’s a little bit older.”
Fox One has begun rolling out new features aimed at giving news viewers more news to check out, said Amit Dudakia, the streaming outlet’s senior vice president of products.
The streaming outlet now offers mobile users the opportunity to watch news segments identified by specific subjects of interest. “We now give our customers the ability to really quickly go back and see topics they may have missed and have instant access in the moment,” he says. Such options allow users to find segments associated with specific areas of interest without having to fast-forward through a 1-2 hour linear program to find a moment. “What we’ve seen is very encouraging in terms of users who are interested in these topics watching more videos,” he added.
Executives are also testing Fox One’s “playlists” centered around specific themes. The playlist features vertical videos on everything from economic stories to the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran.
One feature, called “Ask Fox,” allows users to tell Fox One what kind of content they’re interested in and be given a kind of guide to what content is available. “It’s very difficult for users to find and engage with content if they just see an endless carousel of thumbnails,” says Dudakia. “Then you have to rely on images and descriptions to encourage users to watch that content.” “What we believe is that users are more interested in topics and events.”
Distad said Fox One will likely air the upcoming World Cup using plans tied to its rights agreement to broaden the way it highlights news content to subscribers. “You can imagine that some of the technology that we’re building around the World Cup, for example, is to be able to see information, scores and data about what’s going on in a particular team or match in a single view,” he says. “We’re going to apply that to other big events from a news perspective as well. You can imagine the midterm elections are going to be a very important moment for us.”
Fox News’ Watters might want to start memorizing some NFL statistics.
