Disney, Fox and WBD Unveil Name of Sports-Streaming Venture: Venu Sports

The joint venture of Disney/ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery to package together a sports streaming bundle has a name — Venu Sports.

“We are excited to officially introduce Venu Sports, a brand that we feel captures the spirit of an all-new streaming home where sports fans outside of the traditional pay TV ecosystem can experience an incredible collection of live sports, all in one place,” Pete Distad, CEO of Venu Sports, said in a statement. “As preparations for the platform continue to accelerate, we are singularly focused on delivering a best-in-class product for our target audience, built from the ground up using the latest technologies to engage and entertain discerning sports fans wanting one-stop access to live games.”

Disney, Fox and WBD unveiled their partnership in February, positioning the new streaming bundle as a way to reach consumers who don’t subscribe to pay TV. It’s pegged to debut in the fall of 2024. The trio in March announced the hiring of Distad, who worked for a decade at Apple and most recently was responsible for Apple TV+ business, operations and global distribution. Distad is based out of the Venu Sports offices in L.A.

Pricing and a specific launch date haven’t been announced for Venu, which will combine ESPN+ with the three companies’ linear TV networks that carry sports programming (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNews, Fox, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS and truTV).

When the joint venture was announced, some had jokingly dubbed it “Spulu,” a mash-up of “sports” and “Hulu,” which had originally been formed as a JV among TV broadcasters.

The venture also launched a new website at venu.com. A notice at the bottom of the landing page says, “Launch is conditional on receiving regulatory approval and is expected for Fall 2024.” The site’s terms of service indicate that it’s operated by “Rookie Enterprises, LLC,” a subsidiary of Fox Corp. In announcing the new name, the three companies also noted that the JV is still pending the “finalization of definitive agreements amongst the parties.”

The Justice Department reportedly has planned to review the three-way venture to look at anticompetitive implications, and last month two leading congressional Democrats expressed concerns that the JV may “result in higher prices for consumers and less fair licensing terms for upstream sports leagues and downstream video distributors.” Meanwhile, streaming TV provider Fubo filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the JV service’s launch, alleging the venture violates antitrust laws. On May 2, Fubo, DirecTV, Dish Network, Newsmax and others sent a letter to members of Congress calling for hearings on the state of competition in the pay-TV market, specifically calling out the Disney-Fox-WBD joint venture as “rais[ing] serious competition concerns that call for Congress’s immediate oversight.”

Venu (pronounced “venue”) will be made available directly to consumers via a new app, the companies said. Subscribers will also have the ability to purchase it in a bundle, including with Disney+, Hulu or Max.

The JV’s new name and brand identity were developed in partnership with R/GA, a global design and advertising firm. According to a spokesperson for the company, the Venu Sports name “takes inspiration from where live sports lives: the stadiums, arenas, speedways, octagons, courts, rinks, ballparks and more, where fans come to watch and connect with the action.”

‘The Thundermans Return’ Gets Spinoff Series At Nickelodeon With Original Series Cast Members

The superhero Thundermans are off to solve more crimes. Nickelodeon Studios has given a green light to a new spinoff series based on characters from the hit live-action movie The Thundermans Return.

The spinoff series will follow Phoebe and Max, played by original series cast members Kira Kosarin and Jack Griffo, who are sent undercover to handle a new threat in the seaside town of Secret Shores and bring Chloe (Maya Le Clark) along to develop her superhero talent. Production will begin in Vancouver in August, with premiere details to be announced at a later date.

In the spinoff, Chloe (Le Clark) forms a bond with two classmates while they investigate suspicious activity coming from the local school, who don’t realize their new friend has secret powers. As the danger increases, the Thunderman trio must stay in town indefinitely, leaving the squabbling twins in charge of raising their younger sister.

The Thundermans Return feature-length movie. based on the hit live-action superhero comedy series The Thundermans, follows the superpowered family as they attempt to live a normal life while using their superhuman abilities to stop crime. It premiered earlier this year to stellar ratings, ranking as the number-one entertainment telecast for the year to date in Live+3 across all cable among Kids 6-11. It reached 1.6 million Total Viewers throughout its premiere weekend (March 7-10) across airings on Nickelodeon and Nick At Nite (4 telecasts).

The Thundermans premiered on Nickelodeon in October 2013 and wrapped its four-season run in 2018, ranking as the number-one series across all TV among Kids 2-11 and Kids 6-11. Created and executive produced by three-time Emmy-winner Jed Spingarn, the scripted half-hour series follows superhero twins with opposite personalities, Phoebe and Max Thunderman, as they navigate their way through school, friends and a family of extraordinary superheroes, all while keeping their true identities a secret. .

The series is executive produced by Jed Spingarn (Big Time Rush, Jimmy Neutron) and Sean W. Cunningham & Marc Dworkin (The Thundermans, Julie and the Phantoms). Kira Kosarin is executive producing. Jack Griffo is also an executive producer on the series. Production of the series for Nickelodeon Studios is overseen by Shauna Phelan, Head of Nickelodeon & Awesomeness Live-Action. Brian Banks serves as Nickelodeon’s Executive in Charge of Production.

Repeats Are Back!!! Evil Affairs And Beyond Love Get Extended Airtime On Star Life With A Twist

During the month, Star Life halted repeat broadcasts of Evil Affairs due to several complaints about its themes and depiction of Hinduism. This had also affected their other show Beyond Love as it shares the 10pm slot with Evil Affairs.

This news was met with mostly negative feedback from consumers as some could only keep up with daytime repeats. As some consumers had been forced to miss a week worth of Beyond Love and Evil Affairs.

Based on consumer feedback at the time, Star Life had stated they would work on finding a solution to the broadcasts. As seen moments ago, the channel opted to rather keep these shows on late nights but opted to reshuffle its lineup in those hours. 

Repeats of Imlie were currently reserved at 1:30am and this was followed by Anupama at 2am. This portion will be phased out for Evil Affairs and Beyond Love with no word on when exactly when these changes will be applied. 

Judging by the timeslots and the scheduling, we presume more shows could be affected by these changes or its repeats slots e.g. The Evil Eye and Game Of Love. Beyond Love and Evil Affairs were grouped together and all of a sudden that's not the case here.

Mikey's Murphy's Law/Milo Murphy's Law | Pitch Pilot | Disney Channel

Similar to the original pitch of Phineas and Ferb, the pilot of Mikey Murphy's Law (labeled "Mikey's Law") was a storyboard pitch of what would eventually become the first episode of Milo Murphy's Law, "Going the Extra Milo". It was leaked on April 26, 2024, alongside several other pilots from other Disney Television Animated shows.

The plot is relatively the same as that of "Going the Extra Milo" (barring a few lines that went unused, as well as Milo being named Mikey back then), but includes a couple of design changes. Most notably, Zack used to look completely different. Zack was initially of Caucasian ethnicity with a small, round nose, angular cheeks, and two wavy, angular plucks of hair from a widow's peak, as opposed to the spiky, slicked hairstyle he'd have in the actual series. Interestingly, this design appears to be later used for the final design of Kevin Grant-Gomez, one of the main characters for Dan Povenmire's later show, Hamster & Gretel. Bradley's design was also notably different, having a shorter, wider head, curly hair and big, half-round glasses, looking notably similar to Carl of Phineas and Ferb.

Disney Is ‘Pretty Dramatically’ Reducing Spending on Traditional TV Content, CEO Iger Says

Disney CEO Bob Iger said that as the traditional pay-TV universe continues to shrink, the company is cutting its investment in programming for linear entertainment TV networks while amortizing overall content spending across streaming platforms.

The strategy is “to reduce pretty dramatically our investment in content specifically aimed at those traditional networks,” Iger said Wednesday at MoffettNathanson’s 2024 Media, Internet and Communications Conference in New York. The conclusion Iger reached after reviewing Disney’s TV business when he returned as CEO in the fall of 2022 was that “it’s not a growth business, but it could become an important component to our ability to basically engage with the consumer.”

Iger gave credit to Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment, who oversees the portfolio of linear networks, for managing the transition. Disney will invest in some traditional TV areas, Iger said, but it is managing traditional networks and the streaming platforms under the leadership of one executive — Walden on the entertainment side, and ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro on the sports side — whose goal is “basically to drive bottom-line growth.”

For example, when ABC airs a new episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” or “Abbott Elementary,” it goes on Hulu “pretty quickly” and “what we’re getting is unduplicated audiences. We’re basically aggregating greater audience and we’re amortizing costs,” Iger said. Disney is “doing that across the board,” at ABC, Disney Channel, National Geographic and other networks, and “it’s working,” Iger added.

“We’re going to continue to see erosion in terms of subs for those businesses, but we’re going to actually continue to drive profitability because we’re managing our costs so effectively,” Iger said. “We feel comfortable with our hand right now, because we’re using those networks efficiently and effectively.”

During the MoffettNathanson session, Iger said when the company first launched into the streaming business in 2019 with Disney+, “we were neophytes” — and overinvested in content.

“As we got into the streaming business in a very, very aggressive way… basically, we invested too much,” well ahead of “what was truly monetizable,” he said. That contributed to billions in losses, he said, and “It resulted in volume, not quality.”

After Iger returned as CEO in November 2022, Disney restructured its operating divisions so that creative executives have P&L accountability for what they spend on content and the revenue it generates. Iger said it’s key to have a CEO with “a deep creative background”: “The entire organization knows there’s some guy in the corner office watching everything carefully… Good isn’t good enough — it has to be great.”

On streaming, Disney’s major push in the near term is to boost engagement in order to reduce churn. As part of furthering that goal, Disney+ has integrated Hulu for subscribers of both services, and Disney+ will add an ESPN tile in December that will offer non-ESPN+ subscribers a “taste” of live games and programming (while ESPN+ customers will get access to all the content within Disney+). In addition, Disney is going to crack down on illicit password sharing, starting in limited markets in June followed in September when it will roll out “more aggressively across the globe,” according to Iger.

Another way Disney plans to increase engagement is using artificial-intelligence technology to deliver more personalized content experiences to users. “That first great experience has to be dynamic,” Iger said of Disney’s streaming services. “Every time they open the app it has to be something different — this is where AI will just be a huge, huge important tool to do all this.”

Iger said coming soon to ESPN will be a customized version of its popular news and highlights show “SportsCenter,” which will serve content based on a user’s favorites sports or teams. When you turn on ESPN to watch “SportsCenter,” Iger said, “it should know I’m a Knicks fan. We are actually working on that.”

Iger didn’t comment on ESPN’s specific sports rights negotiations, including its current talks with the NBA. But, he said, “We have passed on things. We knew we couldn’t buy everything.” That said, ESPN has “the most in terms of volume and the most in terms of audience engagement.”

“We aim to manage a portfolio of rights that will enable ESPN to maintain a leadership position in sports,” Iger said. In that way, “you protect your economics… If you’re a sports fan, you need ESPN.”