With the pay-TV industry still struggling to fill rights holes on TV Everywhere, 21st Century Fox COO Chase Carey said his conglomerate is looking to sate the multiscreen lust of its audience by launching direct-to-consumer SVOD services.
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Carey (Source: News Corp.) |
"I think it's great, and there are a lot of plans we're working on," said Carey Wednesday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York, when asked about the SVOD services being launched by rivals CBS and NBC.
"It's a big priority for us," Carey added, without sketching out details on what Fox's OTT services will look like. "Consumers want this choice, and we have to play a direct role."
Carey, meanwhile, echoed a sentiment that is being increasingly expressed by other captains of programming industry, notably Discovery chief executive David Zaslav: If the pay-TV industry's huge multiscreen initiative isn't going to work, programmers will have to step in with their own multiscreen plans.
"We were talking about TV Everywhere six years ago," Carey said. "It's not anywhere near where it should be."
Carey then spoke out of the other side of his famous handlebar mustache, noting his conglomerate has no wish to "cannibalize" its huge affiliate deals with pay-Tv operators.
"And I do think over time over-the-top [video streaming] will become a bigger part of it. But people really like the choice of content" on pay-TV packages, he said.
For more:
- read this Deadline Hollywood story
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