FuboTV, a startup that launched two years ago as a streaming subscription television service for soccer, it just took a major step towards gearing up to launch as “skinny bundle” of 70-plus broadcast and cable channels after securing deals with the several programmers.
By announcing on Wednesday that it will be adding multiple sports and general interest channels as part of a new product set to launch in January. The company is continuing to emphasize live sports programming, an offer the truly affordable and appealing bundle of television channels and will make more than double its channel lineup following affiliate agreements.
It signed recently with Fox Networks Group, NBC Universal, A+E Networks, Crown Media Family Networks, Fuse Media, NBA TV and the Weather Channel. The deals will bring to FunoTV a selection of games from NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball.
FuboTV in the next few weeks plans to launch a new service, at an introductory rate of $34.99 per month, with more than 70 channels, including national broadcast and cable networks, regional sports networks, and local broadcast stations owned and operated by the new partners. Unfortunately, the new television services will not have CBS and it won’t have ESPN, which is the gold standard of the sports network.
FuboTV has to pay the higher channel-carriages fees that all new digital entrants have to pay. Nevertheless, FuboTV CEO David Gandler said that the company can make money with this model by being lean. There are no set-top boxes to install and no giant marketing budgets. “We are clearly more efficient,” Mr. Gandler said. “This become really an efficiency play.”
FuboTV also expected to launch a beta version of the new product around the first week of January. Customers can watch on fubo.tv on Android and IOS devices, and Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV Chromecast, Kindle fire, Roku and through T-Mobile’s Bing on.
The beta version will include features like cross-platform DVR, video on demand, in-browser streaming and digital TV guide navigation, with more add-ons to come.