Two Major Streaming Services May Be Combining

The Streaming Wars finally got interesting

The further we get into 2020, the more the streaming wars continue to heat up as players try new tactics to get ahead.

There are somehow hundreds of streaming services running on the internet right now, but less than ten that really matter. In order to compete, have content to stream, and actually make a profit; companies are going to have to start buying each other or taking each other down to survive.

We know from watching the general American corporate climate that any acquisition, no matter how damaging to the public can be achieved with no government intervention whatsoever. So acquisitions in the streaming service were only to be expected. One deal that caught my eye last Friday was a report of Fox buying Tubi for an alleged price of over $500 million.

Feeling Tubi

Tubi is currently the largest independently owned streaming service in the United States boasting 15,000 titles on their platform.

Tubi was started in 2014 by Farhad Massoudi and Thomas Ahn Hicks and is completely free for viewers, relying on ad revenue from commercials that run throughout programming.

If purchased by Fox, it’s assumed that their licensed programming would be distributed to the two streaming platforms owned by Fox’s parent company Disney. (Hulu and Disney+). Unless of course, Disney is planning on starting a third streaming service that would primarily feature Fox, FX and FXX content (such as Baskets and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). If so, Tubi content could be added to flesh out the new service. (I predict them calling it FireFox then being sued by Mozilla, who will then lose and then be acquired out of bankruptcy court).

An acquisition like this would be news enough, but on the same day, more news came out of an even more interesting acquisition that may marry two entirely real streaming services. (You mark my words about FireFox, I’ve been right before).

The acquisition would affect Peacock, a streaming service that’s not even been released yet, but will be launched by NBCUniversal in July 2020.

Peacock + Vudu

Peacock is so far most famous for taking The Office away from Netflix, and for their announcement that they’ll be streaming Jimmy Fallon every night before his show airs on TV. Now they want to acquire Vudu, the streaming service owned by Walmart.

Vudu is perhaps most well known for their deal with MGM struck two years ago for exclusive content from their studio. Of the MGM deal, Vudu’s Vice President of product said:

“We feel it will be a great source of family-friendly, advertiser-friendly content, which won’t be viewable anywhere else.”

Locking down MGM was only one deal they made in building their enormous library of 24,000 movies and 8,000 TV shows. This amount of content has made Vudu the unsung streaming giant most people have never heard of.

Vudu was started in 2004, then acquired by Walmart in 2010 during a presumed jealous fit at seeing Netflix stock rising, while Blockbuster stock plummeted.

Despite its success at gaining an enormous 25 million registered users, Walmart has been trying to sell Vudu for a while. This probably means that NBCUniversal got a good price for the network, a fact we can’t know until the numbers are made public. What we can know is that only having a limited amount of content is a problem, because Apple TV+ has rightfully been the butt of jokes for months over their sparse, bland, and badly presented content.

It, therefore, makes sense that Peacock would want to start their service with a Netflix vibe rather than an Apple vibe. With that goal in mind, NBCUniversal is likely keen to make sure this deal happens. When asked for comment by a reporter from Variety, a representative from Walmart said about the acquisition deal:

“I can share that we’ve built Vudu into an incredibly strong business, with an installed base of more than 100 million devices across America. We’re constantly having conversations with partners, but we don’t share details of those discussions.”

Aside from year-old rumours and reports, Vudu seems to have been preparing for an acquisition for a while. The service has been introducing more original programming over the past couple years, possibly in an effort to seem more desirable to the competition.

Peacock + Vudu + Xumo = Powerhouse

In addition to acquiring Vudu, Comcast (parent company of NBCUniversal) is still in talks to buy Xumo.

Xumo is a streaming service started by Viant and Panasonic in 2011, and reports of an acquisition have been circulating since December. (Viant has since been bought by Time Inc. Everyone keeps eating each other).

If Peacock opens service in July with the programming, infrastructure and customer loyalty of everyone who’s used Comcast, Xumo and Vudu services in the past; they may have the combined might to compete against Netflix on its own turf and win.

If I sign up to Peacock, it’ll be to watch The Office. I can’t tell you how often I start a Netflix original show, only to get bored and switch over to an old episode of The Office.

I might have to cancel Netflix.