Fubo Loses 206,000 North American Subscribers in Q1, Promises Huge Changes in the Fall
Overpriced live TV streamer Fubo announced its quarterly results today, saying 206,000 subscribers left the service. That leaves Fubo with 1.47 million subscribers in North America.
Fubo reported it had 354,000 paid subscribers in other parts of the world (down 10.9% YoY).
$100.98/mo. $70.99/mo.
The elephant in the room is Fubo’s pending fusion with Disney-owned Hulu + Live TV. Disney essentially paid off Fubo to drop its lawsuit over Venu Sports. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox abandoned its plan to combine forces for a unified sports streamer when a judge blocked the launch.
Fubo CEO David Gandler will run whatever versions of Fubo and Hulu + Live TV emerge later this year. In the quarterly earnings call, he hinted at the changes to come. “We remain committed to providing customers multiple and flexible packaging options from skinny bundles to the full virtual Pay TV bundle and everything in between,” Gandler said.
Gandler said an upcoming skinny bundle would offer sports and broadcast channels and it should launch in time for the fall sports season. The shape of that bundle will depend on negotiations with partners beyond Disney. You may remember Fubo has a long history of bad blood with Warner Bros. Discovery. In July 2020, Fubo dropped Cartoon Network, CNN, TBS, and TNT. In April 2024, Fubo dropped Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, and others. Warner Bros. Discovery may be more likely to negotiate with Gandler once he has Disney’s muscle on his side.
I’ve used Fubo in the past and the service is fine, but it’s missing too many important channels and the cost is insane. If I had to guess, Fubo will shift to become more heavily sports-focused, similar to DIRECTV‘s MySports package, while Hulu + Live TV will offer a variety of packages as DIRECTV does now.
