Fox One streaming service to launch before NFL season

Fox Corp. will launch its direct-to-consumer streaming service, to be called Fox One, ahead of the National Football League season later this year.

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch unveiled the name and timing of the company’s upcoming streamer during a quarterly earnings call Monday.

While Murdoch didn’t give specifics on pricing, he said during Monday’s call it would be in line with so-called wholesale pricing, meaning it would be similar to what pay-TV distributors pay to offer its channels. Cable TV subscribers will get access to the service at no additional cost, Murdoch said.

“Pricing will be healthy and not a discounted price,” said Murdoch.

“It would be a failure of us if we attract more connected subscribers…we do not want to lose a traditional cable subscriber to Fox One,” said Murdoch. He added the company is doing everything “humanly possible” to avoid more subscribers fleeing the cable bundle.

Fox will also explore partnerships with other distributors and services to offer Fox One.

The media company, known for the cable TV channel Fox News and its sports offering on broadcast and cable, had been on the sidelines of streaming compared with its peers. While the company has the Fox Nation streaming app and free, ad-supported service, Tubi, it has yet to offer all of its content in a direct-to-consumer offering.

Murdoch alerted investors in February of the company’s plans to offer the streaming service by the end of this year.

The decision came shortly after Fox, alongside Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, abandoned efforts to launch Venu, a joint venture sports streaming app. Fox was the only one out of its partners without a subscription streaming app already in the market.

Warner Bros. Discovery offers its live sports content on streamer Max.

Disney’s ESPN has its ESPN+ app and is developing a new flagship streaming app that will reflect the content on its cable TV network. The company will unveil further details on the app this week. CNBC reported last week that ESPN plans to name the app simply ESPN.