Media Maneuvers: Pulling the Plug on Venu Sports – O'Dwyer's PR News

ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have called time on Venu Sports, their proposed joint sports streaming service, before its kickoff. In a joint statement on Jan. 10, the three companies said that the service will be discontinued immediately. “In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels,” they said. After plans for the service were announced in February 2024, a legal challenge from streaming service Fubo, which focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, resulted in Venu being put temporarily on hold. On Jan. 6, Disney and Fubo said they would combine Disney’s Hulu+Live TV business with Fubo, ending the litigation and setting the stage for Venu’s cancellation. ESPN has indicated that it is planning its own DTC consumer service (code named “Flagship”) that is likely to launch in August.
Piers Morgan, through his Wake Up Productions media company, is acquiring “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” the talk show that started broadcasting on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV in 2022 before moving to its current home on YouTube (where it has more than 3.6 million subscribers). Murdoch’s News UK, which has also shifted TalkTV to online-only status, will hold on to a commercial interest in the program for the next four years. Morgan stopped broadcasting on TalkTV last February, saying the daily schedule of the show put him into an “unnecessary straitjacket.” He says that “owning the brand allows my team and I the freedom to focus exclusively on building Uncensored into a standalone business.” Red Seat Ventures, which has produced shows for Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, will work with Morgan on developing partnerships and other revenue-boosting initiatives for the brand.
HuffPost joins the wave of media companies handing out pink slips, laying off 39 employees on Jan. 8. The axed employees include David Wood, who won the platform its only Pulitzer in 2012 for a series on the American troops severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The layoffs follow the creation of Oath, a new digital unit at Verizon, HuffPost’s parent company. That move is expected to result in as many as 2,100 layoffs across the company. In response to the layoffs, HuffPost editor-in-chief Danielle Belton handed in her resignation. In a staff memo, Belton said that “I could not, in good faith, ask others to make this difficult decision without doing the same.”
Category: Media News

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