Hulu live dropping Fox regional sports channels

JacketRacket

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variety.com

Hulu Is Dropping Sinclair-Owned Fox Regional Sports Networks From Live TV Plans

Hulu will drop Sinclair Broadcast Group's Fox Sports-branded and other regional sports networks from live-TV packages as of Oct. 23.
variety.com variety.com

Fox Sports South is Atlanta's regional Sports network for a lot of our ACC games (the Syracuse game for example). Youtube TV dropped them last month. Dish and Sling also don't carry them as far as I know.
 
JacketRacket

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I don't really know what cord cutters are supposed to do. AT&T Live now is the only one I can find that will carry it?

I wish there was a ACC streaming package or something similar so I wouldn't have to worry about this. Especially since going to a sports bar isn't as easy of an option due to covid.
 
slugboy

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For some people coming into the conversation late...
  • Disney bought Fox assets, and had to spin some off.
  • Sinclair—which owns a lot of mid market TV stations—bought the Fox regional sports networks
  • Sinclair has tried to make up for this expenditure by raising rates on cable providers whenever a contract expires
  • It looks like virtually no one is renewing the contracts at Sinclair’s price
The RSNs are a major outlet for baseball, college football, soccer, pro and college basketball, and hockey—basically anything that’s not NFL.

In the background, those regional networks, which used to be independent, have been cutting staff behind the camera over the last 20 years. They may all be contractors now—and everyone I know that works for them is a contractor. For games, the announcers are safe, but other roles are getting cut in one way or another—either entirely, or in pay, or in hours.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see the number of cameras get cut even more as Sinclair finds fewer outlets for their programming.

(AT&T’s contract has not expired yet, so they still have the networks at the lower price. Possibly the same with Comcast).
 
presjacket

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slugboy said:
For some people coming into the conversation late...
  • Disney bought Fox assets, and had to spin some off.
  • Sinclair—which owns a lot of mid market TV stations—bought the Fox regional sports networks
  • Sinclair has tried to make up for this expenditure by raising rates on cable providers whenever a contract expires
  • It looks like virtually no one is renewing the contracts at Sinclair’s price
The RSNs are a major outlet for baseball, college football, soccer, pro and college basketball, and hockey—basically anything that’s not NFL.

In the background, those regional networks, which used to be independent, have been cutting staff behind the camera over the last 20 years. They may all be contractors now—and everyone I know that works for them is a contractor. For games, the announcers are safe, but other roles are getting cut in one way or another—either entirely, or in pay, or in hours.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see the number of cameras get cut even more as Sinclair finds fewer outlets for their programming.

(AT&T’s contract has not expired yet, so they still have the networks at the lower price. Possibly the same with Comcast).
Click to expand...
Your description doesn't sound promising for the future of the regional sports networks. Did Disney have to spin off RSN because of government regulators or because they weren't profitable?
 
slugboy

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presjacket said:
Your description doesn't sound promising for the future of the regional sports networks. Did Disney have to spin off RSN because of government regulators or because they weren't profitable?
Click to expand...
They own ESPN--would be a monopoly. I don't think they cried much about spinning them off.
 
jzgt22

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I have YouTube TV and got an email that the regional fox sports networks wouldn't be available after October 1, but they have still been available
 
RonJohn

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RonJohn said:
Fox Sports South nor Fox Sports SouthEast are in my Youtube TV guide.
Click to expand...

My post might have been unclear. I do not have either Fox Sports South nor SouthEast.

It isn't by market for the Sinclair channels. They are not on Youtube TV at all.
 
GTFLETCH

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AT&T TV Now is the only vMVPD that currently carries the networks and that’s only through its $80/month plan.
 
GTFLETCH

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AT&T TV Now is the only vMVPD that currently carries the networks and that’s only through its $80/month plan.
 
GTFLETCH

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FYI...

Their current financial difficulties may potentially make the package available to be bought out or sold to a third party. In theory the cost of a buyout would be the value of any lost profits that Sinclair makes from the package. Given subscriber losses, the value may even be zero or negative to Sinclair, but it could still have market value to someone else.

Sinclair's rights are a sublicense from ESPN not a license from the ACC. My guess is that they pay ESPN the same amount regardless of whether they are able to clear the games or their networks with anyone, so I doubt there would be any minimum clearance requirements.

I continue to believe that ESPN ultimately has interest in the package to move to ESPN+. An OTA syndicator (Raycom Subsequent MovieFilm?) could also be a prospective purchaser of the package, as could another cable network (CBS Sport Network, NBC Sports Network), or another streaming service looking to expand its sports offerings (Amazon Prime, Peacock, CBS All Access). It's possible that ESPN has a right of first refusal. They're known for that sort of thing.
 
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