Despite owning a 35% stake in Foxtel Group, Australia’s most successful streaming Company Telstra still went ahead and acquired a 51% share of struggling set top box business Fetch TV, they then parted Company with the old Fetch TV CEO Scott Lorson and several senior executives claiming the business needed to be “refreshed”.
Now questions are being asked as to why Telstra was keen to buy into a struggling streaming TV company that despite having excellent when it came to content, in particular sports content.
Then there is the question of why Telstra did not move to using Hubbl and Foxtel’s superior content network, which would give Telstra customers access to Kayo Sport and the lion’s share of Australia’s most popular sports.
Telstra has had several stabs at streaming and they have all failed with their latest Fetch TV initiatives seen as another questionable investment especially as 2025 is set to be a volatile year for streaming with the roll out of a brand new streaming operation by UK Company DANZ who late last year acquired Foxtel Group which Telstra will still hold a 3% share in.
Long time Telstra partner News Corp sold Foxtel to UK-based sports streaming service DAZN in a A$3.4bn deal, as Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate moved to minimise their exposure to the streaming market.
News Corp, which currently owns 65% of Foxtel will when the deal is okayed by the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board hold a minority equity stake of 6 per cent in DAZN and have a seat on DAZN’s board of directors.
Telstra is also selling its 35 per cent stake in Foxtel as part of the transaction while gaining 3 per cent stake in DAZN.
Insiders are tipping that the deal with the UK based streaming group, and the roll out of a sport focused streaming Company will hurt the likes of Fetch who have next to nothing in major sports content.
This week Saudi Arabia, who have been on the lookout for a global platform to showcase its sporting ambitions, engaged with DAZN with the Kingdom set to take a 10% stake in DAZN through a unit of its sovereign wealth fund.
The initial investment could be over A1.5 billion dollars.
Currently DAZN is controlled by London based billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik.
Credit: Fetch TV
Back in November Dominic Arena, the newly appointed Fetch CEO, said that he was set to announce, “a refreshed” Fetch executive team and organisation structure aligned to his Fetch 2.0 strategy.
Three weeks ago, Fetch TV made several announcement including the claim that they achieved 20% subscriber growth for 1H FY25, and were advancing their ‘Fetch 2.0 strategy’ with new key Senior Leadership appointments.
What’s not known is whether this growth is because Telstra customers are being sent a Fetch TV box as a replacement for the carriers failed Telstra TV operation.
Questions have also been raised as to how many of the free Fetch TV boxes are actually used with users telling ChannelNews that they simply plugged in the free box but still rely on their built in TV streaming or Foxtel to access content.
Within weeks of the Telstra deal being announced the former CEO of Fetch TV Scott Lorson was gone and recently 15 year marketing veteran Sue Brenchley exited the business along with Sam Hall the chief content and commercial officer as Telstra moved to clean out Fetch 1.0 management.
Among the new hires are Sarah Alder as Chief Revenue Officer she will be responsible for Sales, Channels, Commercial Product Management and Advertising & Merchandising.
Prior to joining Fetch TV in April 2023, Sarah was formerly CFO of Fox Sports, CFO of Sky News and General Manager Finance for Network 10 in Australia.
Fetch has also hired Caitlin Cottam as Chief Financial Officer she has worked with leading firms including KPMG in the UK and Australia.
Fernie Jasmine Abdul Ghani is the Companies new Chief Customer Officer she will be responsible for Brand, Marketing, Creative Design, Comms, Customer Experience & Insights, and Customer Support functions.
Another hire is Israel Sage-Pickin who has been appointed as General Manager Sales & Channels, he is a former FMCG executive.
As one insider said “These are expensive hires with the bulk having little if any exposure to the streaming and content market. Going forward sport and entertainment content is going to be expensive to acquire. They will also be competing with the likes of LG Electronics with their WebOS offering Samsung with their Tizen smart TV system as well as Hisense and TCL. Combined these TV companies have a bigger footprint in Australia than Fetch TV”.
“They will also have to compete with DAZN who are fast becoming a global sports powerhouse in the streaming market”.
After the 2022 acquisition of Fetch Telstra management moved to restructure pricing.
Users have to pay $6.00 a month for premium content that is currently free on Foxtel.
When you get Fetch TV through Telstra you’ll get three months free on the Ultimate Pack and Movie Box (normally $20 and $1.99 per month respectively).
You don’t need to be signed up for a Telstra internet plan to get Fetch TV through the telco.
With Telstra, you have the option of buying the Fetch TV box outright. $198 for the Fetch Mini 4k or $396 for the Fetch Mighty. There’s also the option of paying over 12 or 24 monthly instalments.
The only problem is that the content offering is not as good as their competitors.
