By India McCarty
It looks like the streaming wars are heating up again — ESPN, CNN and Fox have all announced plans to launch new platforms.
“We’re targeting the service entirely to the cordless community, the cordless market out there,” Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp.’s CEO, said of the company’s new platform, Fox One.
The streaming service will offer users all of Fox’s on-air content, including its Sunday NFL broadcasts.
“It would be a failure of us if we attract more connected subscribers or we do not want to lose a traditional cable subscriber to Fox One,” Murdoch added.
Fox Streaming Service Will Be Called Fox One, Launch Planned Ahead of NFL Season https://t.co/49s7swhY1z
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 12, 2025
CNN also unveiled its plans for a subscription streaming service, expected to launch this fall. Variety reported the network’s platform will have two main focuses: standard news coverage and weather news.
“Our objective is a simple one: to shift CNN’s gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN’s future as one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” CNN’s CEO Mark Thompson wrote in a memo to staffers earlier this year. “America and the world need high quality, fair-minded, trustworthy sources of news more than ever.”
While CNN already has a major presence on HBO Max, Thompson noted, “We also believe it is not a complete answer to the future of the great linear CNN experience.”
Related: What We Know About Fox’s ‘New and Exciting’ Streaming Platform FOX One
“[We] plan to develop a new way for digital subscribers at home and abroad to stream news programming from us on any device they choose,” he continued. “It’s early days but we’ve already established that there’s immense demand for it not just in America but across much of the world.”
Disney-owned ESPN will also debut a new direct-to-consumer streaming app that will contain the network’s sports coverage and other studio programming. It’s set to launch this fall.
“It’s going to redefine our business,” Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, said of the platform, which will be offered on a stand-alone basis, as well as part of a bundle with Hulu and Disney+. Pitaro added, “We want fans to subscribe in whatever way is comfortable for them.”
He also clarified why the new streaming service won’t have a new title, saying, “There is power in our name and there is trust in our name.”
This collection of new streaming services, all tied to linear TV networks, is an indicator of where companies are starting to look for new subscriber bases: traditional TV viewers.
Read Next: Everything You Need to Know About ESPN’s New Streaming App
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