Audience Network shutting down

Good riddance. An exclusive 720p channel that you had to spend $50+ month for a specific cable/sat provider to get was always a cancerous business model.

All of their content moving to HBO Max for $15/month with 4K streams is the best outcome for everybody.
 
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I don’t think the DP Show’s status has any indications one way or another vis NFLST. However, the continued ownership of the AT&T Sports Net channels might be questioned.

If AT&T is on the hook (media from the time of the last contract renewal said it was through mid 21) to DP, it would not surprise me to see it on TRU TV, which shows worthless filler in that time slot.

There's been pretty strong speculation that AT&T will sell their Sports Net channels this year as part of their efforts to bring down their debt load incurred from the WarnerMedia acquisition. A few regional sports channels don't make a lot of sense in the company's overall media portfolio now. You can imagine Sinclair, who bought all those Fox RSNs, being the most logical buyer.

As the world of non-live entertainment content continues to migrate from cable to streaming, it's increasingly leaving live sports, news, competition and awards shows as the "killer apps" for linear channels. (If you don't care about that stuff, just get Netflix, Hulu, etc.) Industry observers also expect that the number of linear channels will continue to dwindle as 2nd/3rd-tier channels die off or get consolidated into their 1st-tier siblings.

I could imagine at some point AT&T rebranding TNT as a new "Warner Sports" channel that airs all the live sports currently spread between TNT and TBS, plus some of the stuff from B/R Live. They'd have to fill the schedule with sports news, talk, highlight shows, sports docs, etc. but that's easily (and cheaply) done (see: CBS Sports HQ, which live streams for free). The strongest non-sports content from across TBS, TNT and TruTV might be consolidated on TBS (with all its fresh content available for immediate streaming on HBO Max). TruTV, which reaches fewer cable subscribers and has never built a strong brand, would just shut down.
 
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There's been pretty strong speculation that AT&T will sell their Sports Net channels this year as part of their efforts to bring down their debt load incurred from the WarnerMedia acquisition. A few regional sports channels don't make a lot of sense in the company's overall media portfolio now. You can imagine Sinclair, who bought all those Fox RSNs, being the most logical buyer.

As the world of non-live entertainment content continues to migrate from cable to streaming, it's increasingly leaving live sports, news, competition and awards shows as the "killer apps" for linear channels. (If you don't care about that stuff, just get Netflix, Hulu, etc.) Industry observers also expect that the number of linear channels will continue to dwindle as 2nd/3rd-tier channels die off or get consolidated into their 1st-tier siblings.

I could imagine at some point AT&T rebranding TNT as a new "Warner Sports" channel that airs all the live sports currently spread between TNT and TBS, plus some of the stuff from B/R Live. They'd have to fill the schedule with sports news, talk, highlight shows, sports docs, etc. but that's easily (and cheaply) done (see: CBS Sports HQ, which live streams for free). The strongest non-sports content from across TBS, TNT and TruTV might be consolidated on TBS (with all its fresh content available for immediate streaming on HBO Max). TruTV, which reaches fewer cable subscribers and has never built a strong brand, would just shut down.
They still an overflow channel / channels to air mach madness
 
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As I've posted before, I also expect we'll see AT&T kill Cinemax and roll its smallish library of original content into HBO Max (as the latter half of that name has always suggested to some of us). Cinemax just doesn't offer enough to justify its existence as a standalone service any more. Same rotating library of theatrical films as HBO has but hardly any exclusive original content. Cinemax aired a whopping 17 hours of fresh original content in 2019 (8 episodes of Warrior and 9 episodes of Jett). That's far less than Epix, which costs only $6/mo. Meanwhile, Cinemax costs anywhere from $10-14/mo.

Well, despite reports last year that Cinemax content would be part of the HBO Max library, WarnerMedia reps stated yesterday that would not happen, at least not on an overall basis.

But they did say that Cinemax will stop making original content. Per the story at Deadline:

Cinemax will no longer commission original shows as HBO Max gears up for its forthcoming launch.

The HBO sister network will continue to remain as a linear cable channel, which largely airs movies, but the Cinemax brand will not be transferred to the HBO Max service.


So while Cinemax apparently won't die this year, as I had predicted, it looks like it will instead become a zombie channel, kind of what The Movie Channel is to Showtime. (If you didn't realize that The Movie Channel still existed, no one could blame you. But it does. The closest thing it has to a website is a single page hidden within the larger Showtime site.)

I guess the plan is to essentially spend nothing on Cinemax -- no more original content and probably no marketing. Since it airs the same movies that HBO does, it should cost them next-to-nothing to continue operating. I would expect Cinemax subscribers to continue to plummet but, hey, I guess the few who don't cancel will be pure profit for them.

Maybe they'll eventually shift Cinemax toward airing movies that premiered on HBO/HBO Max several months earlier, kind of like Starz does with their Encore service. But, IMO, that would only make sense if they were able to get Cinemax added back to upper-tier cable channel packages with big carriers like Comcast and Charter, both of which kicked Cinemax out of all their bundles last year. And Comcast has already booted Starz and Encore out of those packages too. So I guess the likeliest scenario is that Cinemax shuffles along as a zombie a la carte premium service that no one cares about until it quietly dies at some point down the road.
 
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Well, despite reports last year that Cinemax content would be part of the HBO Max library, WarnerMedia reps stated yesterday that would not happen, at least not on an overall basis.

But they did say that Cinemax will stop making original content. Per the story at Deadline:

Cinemax will no longer commission original shows as HBO Max gears up for its forthcoming launch.

The HBO sister network will continue to remain as a linear cable channel, which largely airs movies, but the Cinemax brand will not be transferred to the HBO Max service.


So while Cinemax apparently won't die this year, as I had predicted, it looks like it will instead become a zombie channel, kind of what The Movie Channel is to Showtime. (If you didn't realize that The Movie Channel still existed, no one could blame you. But it does. The closest thing it has to a website is a single page hidden within the larger Showtime site.)

I guess the plan is to essentially spend nothing on Cinemax -- no more original content and probably no marketing. Since it airs the same movies that HBO does, it should cost them next-to-nothing to continue operating. I would expect Cinemax subscribers to continue to plummet but, hey, I guess the few who don't cancel will be pure profit for them.

Maybe they'll eventually shift Cinemax toward airing movies that premiered on HBO/HBO Max several months earlier, kind of like Starz does with their Encore service. But, IMO, that would only make sense if they were able to get Cinemax added back to upper-tier cable channel packages with big carriers like Comcast and Charter, both of which kicked Cinemax out of all their bundles last year. And Comcast has already booted Starz and Encore out of those packages too. So I guess the likeliest scenario is that Cinemax shuffles along as a zombie a la carte premium service that no one cares about until it quietly dies at some point down the road.
There is no mention of the Cinemax multiplex channels, are they getting the axe? You'd think this would be a good time to axe Cinemax altogether with HBO Max launching rather than prolonging it for what?
 
There is no mention of the Cinemax multiplex channels, are they getting the axe? You'd think this would be a good time to axe Cinemax altogether with HBO Max launching rather than prolonging it for what?

Nothing was said specifically about the multiplex channels. Given that they said Cinemax will continue to exist as a linear cable channel, I would assume that applies to not only the main Cinemax channel but also MoreMax, MovieMax, ActionMax, etc.

Who knows. I'd say that the future of Cinemax is very iffy and they're probably still trying to figure out what to do with it long-term. But the decision right now seems to be that they don't believe it's worth them investing more money in. It's not like they were spending much money on Cinemax Originals lately anyhow but that figure will soon go down to zero.

Although the title of this story does say that Cinemax "will 'see out' current slate of commissions". I know that they've already co-produced a 4-episode second season of C.B. Strike with the BBC and I think that will air next month on Cinemax. That could be the final original they air. Although the did renew Warrior for a second season last spring and I think it went into production several months ago. So maybe that will air this spring on Cinemax and that'll be it. Or, who knows, if Warrior is a series they think has long-term potential, maybe they'll do a one-off with it and shift it over to HBO Max as one of its Max Originals.

A year from now, maybe they completely shutter Cinemax. Or maybe it evolves into a commercial-free non-premium cable channel like Flix or MoviePlex or Encore that shows older movies. Or maybe only the original Cinemax channel remains and it just becomes part of the HBO multiplex, serving as that service's 24/7 all-movies channel. But whatever happens to it, I think Cinemax will pretty much completely disappear from the cultural conversation.
 
He sold a majority stake, seems he may still own a portion of it.
yeah, he sold most of it to Ryan Seacrest, AEG, Creative Artist Agency and later on CBS Corporation (now ViacomCBS). last year, AXS TV had a majority sold (most likely Seacrest and CAA sold their shares off for profit while CBS may had sold their sales as conditions to get the ViacomCBS remerger approved) to Anthem Sports and Entertainment (the main reason for them buying out majority shares is to get Impact Wresting, the wrestling promotion they acquired in 2017 after it went bankrupt under the previous owner's management).

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They have been telling us that Audience is going away soon, but I don't remember if they listed a date or not ...
If I get a chance, I'll check the memo that I saw it on and see if a date was listed.

You'd think that they would keep Audience going until we get closer to the launch date for HBO Max in May, given that they're going to turn Audience into an HBO Max preview channel.
 
Last statement from Eisen was that the entire show, not just video coverage of it, was in jeopardy. That was January 17th, and no word since.

Unlike Patrick, Eisen’s show is produced by AT&T at the DirecTV facility in California, and, unlike Patrick, apparently he does not have a contract (AT&T is on the hook for Patrick for several years, even if they don’t show the show). Premiere Radio (using the Fox Sports Radio alter ego) offers two show in that slot, the other being Cowherd. On SXM the show is on the sadly named “Dan Patrick Channel”.

I think we are seeing a shake out of the “put a camera in front of a radio sports talk show” genre. Sadly, these smarter and brighter than average show, particularly Eisen’s, seem to be the casualties, while the ESPN/Fox NBA NBA NBA NBA NBA NBA NBA NBA NBA scream feasts have survived.
 
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