LEAD STORY
NBCSN To Be Shut Down End Of 2021
When it launched in 1995 it was known as the Outdoor Life Network, then in 2006 it became Versus, another rebrand took place in 2011 which led to NBCSN, and now comes the news that at the end of 2021 there will be no more rebrands and no more NBCSN.
NBCUniversal this past Friday announced that it will be shutting down its sports network by the end of the year. The media conglomerate is favoring its cable channel USA Network and its new streaming service Peacock in providing sporting content to its viewers.
NBCSN has been the home of marquee sports programming like the NHL, the English Premier League, NASCAR, and the Tour De France, but it now believes that all this content would be better served on USA and Peacock. USA has a larger distribution footprint than NBCSN — it’s available in 90.4 million homes compared to NBCSN which is available in 80.6 million homes.
In addition to that, USA makes more money than NBCSN when it comes to cable carriage fees. USA makes $1.65 per subscriber per month while NBCSN makes $0.45 per sub per month.
But, what may be the main reason for the demise of NBCSN is that NBCUniversal wants to provide more value for its streaming service Peacock. Peacock, which launched last year, has already started pulling content away from NBCSN and the sports streaming service NBC Sports Gold, which will also be shut down sometime soon.
Select EPL games have already been shown on Peacock and it was announced last week that speed skating would be moving from NBCSN to Peacock. With more and more sporting content migrating to Peacock keeping NBCSN alive did not seem viable.
Launching a streaming service is an expensive venture — media companies are pouring tons of money to get these services off the ground. Because of that, they are also looking for ways to limit expenditure and one way of doing that is by sunsetting some of the cable channels they feel will become redundant as a result of launching a streaming service.
Look for other media companies to follow suit and also start sunsetting some of their cable channels as they prioritize their streaming services as well as try to keep costs down.
(Sports Business Journal, Sportico)
RECAP
Larry King Passes Away
This past Saturday morning the media world lost a broadcasting legend in Larry King. No cause of death has been mentioned, though he had been hospitalized with COVID-19 in late December. King became a household name because of his CNN show Larry King Live, which ran from 1985 till 2011. For most of that time, his talk show was the highest-rated program on CNN and up until 2016, he had the most-watched program on CNN. The success of Larry King Live enabled CNN to grow into a formidable news operation. (CNN, Medium Buying/Twitter, David Clinch/Twitter )
Netflix Reaches 200 Million Global Subscribers
Netflix shared some good news during its fourth-quarter earnings report — the streaming service said it now has 200 million global subscribers. Netflix achieved this milestone by adding 8.5 million subscribers in the last quarter. The company also said that it beat its revenue and earnings expectations and that it is looking to break even in 2021 — meaning that it will no longer seek outside revenue for its daily operations. In the past year, Netflix has been hit with some serious competition from the likes of Disney, NBCUniversal, Apple, and WarnerMedia, but it has managed to maintain its status as the premier streaming service. (Axios, CNBC)
Fox News Lays Off Staff
With the elections over Fox News is adjusting its staffing levels — the media company laid off around 20 people with most of them coming from its digital operations. One notable name among the cuts was Chris Stirewalt who was a political editor for the network and was part of the Fox News decision desk team. As you recall, Fox News correctly called the state of Arizona and it did it very early on Election Night, which upset many people including Donald Trump. Some view these layoffs as Fox News moving away from news reporting and into more opinionated programming. (The Hollywood Reporter, The Daily Beast)
Paramount Plus Set To Debut On March 4th
ViacomCBS’ transformation of CBS All Access to Paramount Plus will now take place on March 4th. The media company will introduce the streaming service to the masses with a special event scheduled for February 24th. Paramount Plus will launch with originals such as a remake of The Game and new episodes of MTV’s Behind The Music plus a library of over 30,000 shows and movies from ViacomCBS owned TV networks and movie studios. (The Verge)
QUICK RECAP
Inauguration 2020: How the networks covered the Inauguration. (NewscastStudio)
Inauguration 2020: How networks covered Donald Trump’s departure. (The Daily Beast)
Inauguration 2020: CNN was the most-watched network on Wednesday. (CNN Pressroom)
Inauguration 2020: Did CNN and MSNBC go over the top with Biden praise? (Politico)
Women are now the face of the news networks White House teams. (The Hill)
Former CNN International chief Chris Crammer passes away. (CNN)
Tom Brokaw retires from NBC News. (TVNewser)
ABC News announces its new Washington DC reporting teams. (ABC News Public Relations)
Will cable providers remove Fox News from their lineups? (Bloomberg$$$)
NBCUniversal’s Mark Lazarus hopes Peacock hits its stride during the Olympics. (CableFax)
PlutoTV is set to launch in France in February. (MediaPost)
A-Rod signs a one-year extension with ESPN. (New York Post)
Muppet Show is coming to Disney Plus. (Steven Zeitchik/Twitter)
Now that Drew Brees has retired is NBC Sports his next destination? (Indy Star)
Al Roker received the COVID-19 vaccine live on TV. (TVNewser)
Netflix’s Lupin seen by 70 million subscribers. (Deadline)
Maria Bartiromo, Trey Gowdy to try out for Fox News 7p ET slot. (Variety)
NBC Sports and Boom Sports extend free-to-play games partnership. (NBC Sports Group Press Box)
Former ESPNers John Skipper and Dan LeBatard to launch Meadowlark Media looking for $10-15 million. (Front Office Sports)
Cross-promotion on VicacomCBS networks will help Paramount Plus garner attention before its launch. (Wall Street Journal$$$)
Should CNN stop the panel discussion format? (Columbia Journalism Review)
Fox News quietly settled a lawsuit with Seth Rich’s family. (New York Times)
ESPN plans to keep its MNF trio for another year. (Awful Announcing)
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