Foxtel Tipped To Launch Drama SVOD Platform
Foxtel is expected to release a new drama and entertainment streaming service following the success of its Kayo sports streaming service.
Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany told the AFR the Kayo “experiment” of offering Foxtel content on a streaming platform with a different name has proved to be “unbelievably good”.
It’s now expected Foxtel will continue with the experiment by expanding it to different genres of content that previously were only sold as “packs” in its subscription television service.
“We already have an amazing platform built with Kayo – it is unbelievably good, both in terms of the way it flawlessly streams but also the smarts,” Mr Delany said.
“Deploying that in non-sport would make an amazing service… we have a huge amount of content outside of sport.”
The internally titled Project Jupiter will face stiffer competition than Kayo did as it will be forced to go up against established competitors Netflix and Stan (and soon Disney+), while the sports streaming platform has practically no competition.
Prior to the launch of Kayo, Foxtel subscribers who wanted sport were forced to buy an entry level pack such as Entertainment before adding the Sport pack for $29 a month.
HD also cost an extra $10, meaning customers who wanted to watch sport in high definition were forced to pay almost $50 a month.
Kayo costs around half as much, starting at $25 a month, and in less than a year has attracted hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Mr Delany said the cheaper service is not drawing subscribers away from Foxtel but instead adding new customers who didn’t want to pay the higher prices.
“Any churn we were seeing earlier in the year came out of the price rise and it’s coming out of lower end customers that were put on in the last three years that are either price sensitive or were not seeing value, it’s not coming out of our traditional base.”
Foxtel’s churn fell to just over 15 per cent in April after nearing 18 per cent in the first three months of the year.