Forget the Plus: ESPN’s DTC Launch Redefines It as a Total Sports Utility
Disney’s new direct-to-consumer ESPN service is more than a rebrand or a platform extension—it’s a strategic statement. For the first time, ESPN will operate as a standalone streaming service, free from the legacy limitations of the cable bundle. The name? Just “ESPN.” No Plus. No qualifiers.
This move follows Disney’s recent negotiations with Charter, which cleared the legal path to launch an ESPN-branded DTC product without risking distribution conflicts. Cable subscribers will still have access via authentication, allowing Disney to preserve MVPD relationships while asserting full control over its sports platform.
The Take
This rollout isn’t just a product launch—it’s a strategic realignment. ESPN has finally been unshackled from cable-era constraints and positioned as a full-stack sports platform. This allows Disney to control its own sports destiny and reframes what a “streaming service” should be in 2025.
While the rest of the industry is still fiddling with naming conventions and bundling experiments, ESPN is doing something bigger: it’s owning the category.
Because it doesn’t need a new name. It already is the name.
Source: The Streaming Wars
Enjoy this data deep dive presented by Parks Associates.
Roku reported that it reached $1 billion in revenue from its platform business for the first time in Q4 2024. This includes sales from subscriptions and advertisements on Roku devices.
The company attributes the growth to an increase in streaming hours, a user base of nearly 90 million households, and strong advertising demand, particularly in political ads.
For 65% of households, Roku, Samsung, and Amazon are the most-used connected TV (CTV) platforms, with Roku in the lead. Unlike Amazon and Samsung, whose ecosystems are tied to broader hardware and retail businesses, Roku remains singularly focused on refining its CTV experience, leveraging its home screen to drive ad revenue and engagement.
With advertising becoming a key revenue driver for streaming platforms, major players like Google (YouTube), Disney (Hulu), and Netflix are expanding their ad-supported offerings, which will only intensify competition for ad dollars.
Roku’s ability to secure a 25% year-over-year growth in platform revenue despite this crowded landscape shows that its integrated content strategy is proving successful, particularly the growing success of The Roku Channel.
Parks Associates research reveals 64% of Roku users who watch FAST also watch The Roku Channel and 41% of all Roku CTV users watch The Roku Channel. By offering free, ad-supported content, Roku continues to capture a growing audience segment that prefers cost-free streaming, making it an attractive destination for advertisers.
The battle for ad spend, however, is only one piece of the equation. Streaming media players retain a significant role as the primary streaming device for about a third of households, but smart TVs have now emerged as the preferred choice for most viewers. Roku’s ability to expand its smart TV presence, both through partnerships and its own branded TVs, will be critical in 2025 and beyond.
Free TV is Booming
David Letterman, Chuck E. Cheese and 50 Cent are all promoting their own TV channels with one crucial common denominator — they're free.
Why it matters: "This is the new default TV experience," Sarah Nelson, global head of strategic partnerships at Samsung TV Plus, told Axios.
"People are abandoning linear. Subscription services have sort of reached saturation. People are really looking for premium content and experience that's super lean back, frictionless, easy to access and at no cost to them," Nelson said.
Driving the news: Streamers have grown their reach and revenue by embracing ads. Amazon said the ad-supported tier of Prime Video reaches 130 million U.S. customers on Monday at its Upfront presentation for advertisers. On Wednesday, Netflix — once famously anti-advertising — will host a formal Upfront.
But free TV dominated the sales pitches during last week's NewFronts, the annual advertising event for digital-focused companies. Samsung touted its free, ad-supported television (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus including from Letterman, the Jonas Brothers and Billboard.
Other TV makers like LG and Vizio presented their FAST services along with content providers like Vevo, Revry and Dr. Phil's Merit TV.
During Fox-owned Tubi's event, actor Noah Beck credited the "lack of paywall" to why his movie, "Sidelined: The QB and Me," went viral across social media. "Anyone's able to just jump in and watch a show or a movie, and I think that alone just helps to spread. It's so easy to watch," he said.
By the numbers: FAST isn't new, but the number of channels and viewership is rising.
An estimated 1,755 FAST services are available in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Canada, as of May 5, up 17% since June 2024 and 67% since June 2023, according to Gracenote.
Nielsen said Pluto TV, Paramount's FAST service, was the first to appear in The Gauge, its monthly analysis of TV consumption, in August 2022.
PlutoTV viewership is up 15%, Tubi's up 21% and The Roku Channel's up 67% since April 2024, per Nielsen.
Source: Axios
Understand the streaming landscape in this weekly data snapshot series provided by Parrot Analytics. “Conclave” serves as a cautionary tale about the unanticipated risks of licensing away content to competitor platforms.
Key Findings Include
- “Conclave” followed a path similar to many awards season contenders where audiences engaged most as it made the round at awards ceremonies. It peaked as the 17th most in-demand movie globally the day after the Oscars and then gradually fell out of the top 100 most in-demand movies until the death of the Pope on Easter Monday.
- The movie then became the third most in-demand movie globally on April 23rd and remained in the top 10 movies globally for 9 days following the Pope’s death as audiences sought it out to make sense of real world events.
- Universal’s windowing deal sees its live action movies head first to Peacock for 4 months and then move to stream on Prime Video exclusively, so “Conclave” left Peacock and became available to stream on Prime Video a day after the Pope’s death. Amazon now looks set to benefit most from the newly revived interest in the movie.
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