# Fubo may be Fubar!



## grover517 (Sep 29, 2007)

Appears Fubo is losing channels left and right over the past few days. 

They were never considered by us simply because they lacked ESPN and ABC. Now, they have also lost not only the few Disney channels they did have such as FX, FXX, FXM and Fox Sports College sports channels but now Sinclair owned RSN's and YES Network.

For a service that wants to position themselves as a sports "go to" service, it's not looking so good right now.


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Simple solution is for them to add those channels back in and increase their price to cover those costs plus some profit for having them.
You’d be willing to pay more for that, right? 


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

lparsons21 said:


> Simple solution is for them to add those channels back in and increase their price to cover those costs plus some profit for having them.
> You'd be willing to pay more for that, right?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


Kills me to say this but I'd pay anything within reason for YES.

Rich


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

Rich said:


> Kills me to say this but I'd pay anything within reason for YES.
> 
> Rich


Would a $16+ just for the ESPN bundle be "within reason"? That's how much SNL Kagan says Disney wants and Fubo says Disney insists they take the full bundle plus high penetration requirements.

fuboTV Drops Fox Regional Sports Networks - Cord Cutters News


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## garn9173 (Apr 4, 2005)

Fubu has said if they could only add ESPN without adding the other Disney owned networks they would do so, but it's all or nothing with Disney.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

NYDutch said:


> Would a $16+ just for the ESPN bundle be "within reason"? That's how much SNL Kagan says Disney wants and Fubo says Disney insists they take the full bundle plus high penetration requirements.
> 
> fuboTV Drops Fox Regional Sports Networks - Cord Cutters News


Yeah, I do use ESPN frequently for football, baseball, fights and poker, I'd pay that much.

Rich


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

Rich said:


> Yeah, I do use ESPN frequently for football, baseball, fights and poker, I'd pay that much.
> 
> Rich


I'd suggest Fubo adds a separate sports add-on to cover the costs for those that want it, but that likely wouldn't hit the required penetration numbers.


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## espaeth (Oct 14, 2003)

Fubo is in a tough place in general - they don’t have leverage over cost control for content acquisition, content distribution infrastructure, and they’ve had to develop their advertising marketplace from scratch.

Compare that to:

Hulu - with Disney backing the service, they have a 1000lb gorilla in their corner for cost control on the content side, but they’re still reliant on external partners for content distribution infrastructure (at least today).

ATT TV - another powerhouse with WarnerMedia content ownership helping to keep content costs reasonable. ATT might have a slight advantage on distribution, because even though they outsource CDN services to external companies, they can barter those contracts down by offering reciprocal deals on ATT transit bandwidth.

YoutubeTV - built on the already paid for infrastructure of Youtube content distribution, with one of the most well known online video advertising platforms on the market today. They are at a disadvantage by not having ownership in any of the content production companies, but they’re in a better position than companies like Fubo because of brand recognition and the kind of negotiations a company the size of Alphabet can manage.

Sony already bowed out with PS Vue facing the same content and distribution pressures as Fubo.

Sling has the negotiating power of Dish/Echostar behind it, but they still had to bump the price, shuffle the lineup, and lost the Sinclair regional sports networks.

Philo might still be okay because the primary backers are A&E Networks, Discovery-Sripps networks, and CBS/Viacom. With that much investment by major content producers and lacking the highly expensive sports and news programming, they might have enough going for them to keep going.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this shakes out in 2020.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

espaeth said:


> Fubo is in a tough place in general - they don't have leverage over cost control for content acquisition, content distribution infrastructure, and they've had to develop their advertising marketplace from scratch.
> 
> Compare that to:
> 
> ...


Interesting indeed. Just hope it keeps on getting better. I do like watching things evolve.

Rich


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## garn9173 (Apr 4, 2005)

Philo is carving out a niche for themselves in not having sports or any of the cable news channels and appealing to those who don't want especially sports, perhaps that's the route Fubo goes. As far as the others go, the more competition the better. Another streaming service not mentioned was newbie Vidgo, their channel lineup is solid and a DVR is coming.

HuluLive's price factors in it's On Demand feature, but I can get that for free through Sprint and why I went to YTTV when HuluLive announced it's price hike.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Fubo seemed to have the "sports" niche. There isn't a need for yet another service providing non-sports ... especially an "other people's content" service.

The "selling our content" providers can live without sports as long as their content is compelling (such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney). Fubo would need to develop exclusive content that people wanted to join the "selling our content" crowd.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

It seems that Disney is shooting themselves in the foot to some extent with Fubo since they own a piece of it...


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## espaeth (Oct 14, 2003)

NYDutch said:


> It seems that Disney is shooting themselves in the foot to some extent with Fubo since they own a piece of it...


Those are investments made by 21st Century FOX before Disney acquired them. The lead investors in FuboTV are Northzone and AMC Networks.

Fubo has raised $153m through all their funding rounds, meanwhile Disney's buyout of NBC/Universal's 33% stake in Hulu telegraphed that they believe Hulu will reach a valuation of at least $27.5bn. 

At Disney's scale, the investment in Fubo is basically the equivalent of spare change lost in your couch.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

espaeth said:


> Those are investments made by 21st Century FOX before Disney acquired them. The lead investors in FuboTV are Northzone and AMC Networks.
> 
> Fubo has raised $153m through all their funding rounds, meanwhile Disney's buyout of NBC/Universal's 33% stake in Hulu telegraphed that they believe Hulu will reach a valuation of at least $27.5bn.
> 
> At Disney's scale, the investment in Fubo is basically the equivalent of spare change lost in your couch.


Note that I did say "...to some extent." I agree that extent might only be pocket change, not something that would have the bankruptcy lawyers lining up...


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## rnbmusicfan (Jul 19, 2005)

garn9173 said:


> Philo is carving out a niche for themselves in not having sports or any of the cable news channels and appealing to those who don't want especially sports, perhaps that's the route Fubo goes. As far as the others go, the more competition the better. Another streaming service not mentioned was newbie Vidgo, their channel lineup is solid and a DVR is coming.
> 
> HuluLive's price factors in it's On Demand feature, but I can get that for free through Sprint and why I went to YTTV when HuluLive announced it's price hike.


With the CBS Viacom merger, Philo's lineup might be challenged, if it is pressured to add the CBS stations. I assume Pop Channel would bundled, but if CBSViacom starts demanding CBS affiliate carriage, it will likely lead to a significant cost increase since CBS has expensive programming including NFL rights. I don't think it is sensible for a lineup to just have CBS but not ABC, NBC or FOX, but those CBSViacom cable channels make up a large percentage of Philo's lineup. But, I think Philo could drop them if negotations with CBS fall out, and CBS could just tier its ViacomCBS channels on CBS All Access or a paid version of PlutoTV, which it might do anyways.

To fill the loss, it would have to add channels from elsewhere, including some of these

SONY Movie Channel, getTV (SONY)
Military History, Crime & Investigation Network, Lifetime Real Women (Hearst)
INSP
FETV
The Cowboy Channel
HDNet
Reelz, Ovation
Great American Country

Not sure if the appeal of Philo is those Viacom channels or the Home and Discovery based channels more.


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## grover517 (Sep 29, 2007)

rnbmusicfan said:


> With the CBS Viacom merger, Philo's lineup might be challenged, if it is pressured to add the CBS stations. I assume Pop Channel would bundled, but if CBSViacom starts demanding CBS affiliate carriage, it will likely lead to a significant cost increase since CBS has expensive programming including NFL rights. I don't think it is sensible for a lineup to just have CBS but not ABC, NBC or FOX, but those CBSViacom cable channels make up a large percentage of Philo's lineup. But, I think Philo could drop them if negotations with CBS fall out, and CBS could just tier its ViacomCBS channels on CBS All Access or a paid version of PlutoTV, which it might do anyways.
> 
> To fill the loss, it would have to add channels from elsewhere, including some of these
> 
> ...


I would be very surprised if Philo was strong armed into carrying CBS affiliates. Those stations are already available via numerous paths from OTA to CBS AA. To me, it would be fiscally detrimental to both Philo and CBS AA with the majority of Philo subscribing mainly as an add on service to other providers or as the least expensive way to still get a few popular cable channels to go with their OTA setups.

I think the better bet is on some combinations of Philo/CBS AA/Showtime bundled at a slight discount.


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## loudo (Mar 24, 2005)

As a sports hound, I have been analyzing all of the streaming services and thought Fubo was a good one to look at, as they claim to be for sports enthusiasts. I was very disappointed to see no ESPN, MLB TV or NHL TV. But they were the only one that had NFL Network.
But then looking at sports, on other services:
Hulu was missing my local RSN, NFL Network, MLB TV, and NHL TV. 
You Tube TV was missing NFL Network, and NHL TV.
Sling was missing both my local RSNs, and NFL Network..
AT&T TV was missing one of my local RSNs and NFL Network.


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## B. Shoe (Apr 3, 2008)

loudo said:


> As a sports hound, I have been analyzing all of the streaming services and thought Fubo was a good one to look at, as they claim to be for sports enthusiasts. I was very disappointed to see no ESPN, MLB TV or NHL TV. But they were the only one that had NFL Network.
> But then looking at sports, on other services:
> Hulu was missing my local RSN, NFL Network, MLB TV, and NHL TV.
> You Tube TV was missing NFL Network, and NHL TV.
> ...


You bring up a great scope into one of the current choices that have to be made, when it comes to switching to a streaming provider; what can you, personally, be willing to give up (at least at the moment)?

For me, I don't regularly watch baseball, but don't follow hockey. Narrows it down a little bit. But could I really live without NFL Network? I gave it a shot with YTTV (it was also the only one to carry all of my market's locals), and found a local watering hole to watch the few NFLN-exclusive NFL games that I didn't have access to. After a full season of NFL football, I've survived. It doesn't work for everyone, but I've made due.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

My sport is NASCAR, which means Fox Sports 1 and NBC Sports Network (depending on the half of the season) plus other related channels for certain races.
At this point $30 for Sling Blue would work. YouTube wants $49.99. Fubo wants $54.99. Hulu wants $54.99. AT&T Now wants $65.
Obviously all the packages have additional channels (beyond FS1/NBCSN).
And there are other channels I watch ... but the most common are included in the base packages above (I have simple tastes).


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## wmb (Dec 18, 2008)

James Long said:


> My sport is NASCAR


Sorry to hear that

Soccer here, so NBCSN for England and ESPN+ for out-of-market MLS games that aren't broadcast nationally. ESPN, FS1 and Univision for national broadcasts.

The weird one is our MLS local team... They are broadcast OTA locally, but the in-market streaming rights were sold to FLOSports. That meant that DirecTV Now couldn't stream the game even though they carried the station used for local broadcasts. I was lucky... I had an antenna and could get the game OTA. Out of luck people were those that couldn't get the OTA channel either through an MVPD or antenna, and were in the 75 mile local zone back out of ESPN+. FloSports was pricey - $30 per month. There was a lot of complaints: 
FC Cincinnati's FloSports fix: $99 subscription for the first 2K to sign up

I will add that I'll go to a local pub a number of times a year to watch Arsenal games with the local Gooners.

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## B. Shoe (Apr 3, 2008)

wmb said:


> FloSports was pricey - $30 per month. There was a lot of complaints:


FloSports is a good product, but yes...a costly add-on. It broadcasts a lot of dirt track racing, so I'm at least familiar with it. But for everyone who says "I just want a sports-only service," you're getting a little glimpse into what those monthly costs would be.


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## wmb (Dec 18, 2008)

B. Shoe said:


> FloSports is a good product, but yes...a costly add-on. It broadcasts a lot of dirt track racing, so I'm at least familiar with it. But for everyone who says "I just want a sports-only service," you're getting a little glimpse into what those monthly costs would be.


My daughter played D-2 college lacrosse a couple of years ago, and the school had some sort of streaming service set up that cost $25 for the season. The games were basically produced by journalism students, but we could watch the games!

I think we also subscribed to Major League Lacrosse for our son. I don't think it was horribly expense. It was a couple of bucks, but I don't remember the details. It didn't sting like Flo would have.

Both of our examples are very niche.

But, I think Flo was a little greedy. They were the sole broadcaster for DC United, and the team was forced to end the agreement because of fan response.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...severs-ties-with-broadcast-partner-flosports/

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## armchair (Jul 27, 2009)

I've been subscribing to Fubo TV since the Disney Suite of channels were added. Despite the channel swap, losing Warner Media and adding Disney Suite, the service has improved some short sided issues I noted early on with Fubo TV app on Apple TV 4K.

But still no recording option for the Disney channels. It's a matter of yes, we're aware at launch these channels lack recording ability but we're working the issue and expect to have it fixed within a week. That is what Fubo had to say about recording at launch. Take note, it's still not fixed on any platform; I've checked Apple TV, Roku, fire TV and PC. No recording ability; despite it only being reported in Fubo help as a Samsung TV issue when I opened my support ticket.

So I opened a ticket myself noting all platforms, not just one, lack recording of Disney channels. Next day get a reply Fubo TV engineers are working this issue day and night. The following day, I get a request to rate my customer support? It's not resolved so why rate my support? Hurried to close open tickets? I reminded them the issue isn't resolved and I've yet to get another reply.

Previous issues have been resolved but it's still a sticking point with me the that responses are brief, slow to respond and only contain a ticket number for reference; they remove all past history. Every time? Yes. I've had multiple tickets open and have to go search history again to know what they're talking about and verify they've actually fixed something. It's nonsensical to continue handling support tickets this way and try to close them for no response. I've gotten several canned responses that say, "we've passed along your comments to the relative department; thank you for comments. Your input is valuable to us".

What has been fixed? I was disappointed to find no screensaver existed in Fubo TV app for Apple TV: now fixed. Wonky ad skipping on Apple TV 4K, requiring Siri remote for thumbnail view with pause + scrub that times out and doesn't allow forward and backwards scrub to seek the end of commercial break in recording playback. Well, they half fixed that. Still seems wonky with a timeout that limits time while using fine motor skills to find the end of commercial breaks and resume on content; it's too challenging having to use small gestures to jump in large segments. This feature lacks the friendliness and accuracy and consistency of thumbnail view skipping ahead I've experienced with YTTV and Philo which also offer compatibility with Logitech Harmony remote skipping with thumbnail views. Needs some attention.

What else? They were cutting off sports event recordings; despite personally padding extra events in guide, recordings were falling short because somehow Fubo TV wouldn't record the whole guide slot that an event would occupy in guide. Omitted gaps weren't recorded at all. Once I figured that out and reported, it was fixed promptly. Well, it worked last weekend; just saying, maybe it's resolved now. But there's still a preferred way to record live sporting events that subscribers should note; use the sports tab in app to record upcoming events; these seem to have added padding included in record times, exceeding guide slot. Even that wasn't recording entire time noted until this past weekend. No weather delays so far to report but padded record times meant the entire event recorded. More to verify if a weather delay occurs; padding record times doesn't always fix weather delays. And yes, still no series recordings for the season of sports events; it's still manual record.

I can't be the only user reporting these issues so I don't take credit for fixes that seemingly got fixed quickly. Good to know they're actually being looked into and adjusted to some degree. Sling didn't do so well with similar reports- actually did nothing the short time I used their service. I'm mostly happier with Fubo TV, save a few open issues that I'd like remedied. More money than I was paying for Sling and Philo but there wasn't ESPN in that combo and 8 couldn't pause live TV with most Sling channels. Adding Sling Orange may have put that combo over that I'm paying Fubo TV at the moment. Less add-ons; less inconvenience. More channels; one service.
But again, Fubo TV still has some work to do.

Edit; I was assured Fubo TV engineers are still working this issue day and night. But how difficult can that be? May be a contractual issue that was overlooked?

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## armchair (Jul 27, 2009)

Checked again last night. Not sure when this happened but I can now record ESPN F1 races and SEC games on Fubo TV. I didn't check all Disney channels but I'm guessing that means all finally allow recording.

When Disney channels launched on Fubo August 1st, 2020, recording wasn't possible; and weren't until just recently. Fubo TV said this was a known issue and the plan then was to have this fixed within a week. Twice I was assured Fubo engineers were aware of this and working the issue day and night.

Still cannot set record series for sports events. There have been some improvements to make Fubo TV more watchable. But DVR hours for downgraded for new subscribers starting at 250. Subscribers already paying for 500 hours DVR got grandfathered at that amount. At least for the French Open, the DVR hours are critical. Prior to that, DVR was easily managed; less than 130 hours recorded for watching later, whenever that happens.

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