OK, quick quiz. How many streaming services do you have, and how much are you paying for them?
If it takes more than five minutes, you might not be alone. A lot of television networks have been looking for alternate ways to provide content to your television set top box, your computer, or even your mobile phone.
For many of you, the array of streaming services may allow you to see content that some cable/satellite services do not provide. Other people use virtual private networks to view foreign programming.
But the array has led, I think, to a phenomenon called “streaming fatigue.” It’s where you might have gotten the one service that you wanted to see the one show that you desperately wanted to view (such as Apple TV for Ted Lasso), but aren’t interested in anything else on that service. You wind up paying for months even though you aren’t watching anything on that network.
You also might have lost interest in that one show that has been the center of conversation around the watercooler, but are still paying for the service months after your three-month free trial. Or, for sports fans, you’re paying for the weeks or months when your team isn’t playing.
And there are also times when you’re searching around for a certain game you think is on your local sports channel, but is behind a paywall — something you’ve started seeing with the NFL with their games on Netflix, Peacock, and NFL Plus in recent weeks.
Well, this morning, an enormous multinetwork venture, Venu, was cancelled. The sports/content behemoth would have put together the services on Warner Brothers-Discovery (including TNT and TBS), Hulu (including Fox Sports), and ESPN together in one package.
Sure, that would make a fine one-stop shop, but the problem is that a lot of what added value to all three of these networks is, or will go, missing. WBD will no longer have NBA games on TNT after this year. Fox is no longer covering the Women’s World Cup, its rights having gone to Netflix. And ESPN lost out on the men’s World Cup some time ago as well as motorsports and golf.
This retrenchment on the consolidation of sports properties is part of a trend where events formerly put onto streaming-only platforms are now back on cable. You didn’t see Monday Night games exclusively on ESPN Plus this past season. You’re not seeing a Peacock-exclusive NFL playoff game this year. The field hockey-only service WatchHockey isn’t charging Americans to watch the FIH Pro League anymore.
Major League Soccer, after a launch on Apple TV, suddenly found itself putting games, including the 2024 MLS Cup final, on Fox Sports. Elsewhere, U.S. soccer games are now suddenly finding cable homes on Tru, TBS, and TNT after speculation that they would be gravitating exclusively to the Max streaming service.
And whatever happened to the announcement that the TV show Dancing With The Stars would only be on Disney Plus?
I get the feeling that streaming services are going to be an expensive bet which may go bust, especially if a sports league finds its product diminished because nobody is tuning in.