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Telemundo’s effort to bring English speakers to the network for its World Cup coverage is reportedly causing some “tension” between Fox, the English-language rightsholder, and NBCUniversal, which owns Telemundo.
In a report outlining media companies interested in securing rights to the 2030 and 2034 World Cups, CNBC reporter Alex Sherman noted that FIFA may choose to package English-language and Spanish-language rights together, for one media partner, rather than splitting the rights in two. Sherman writes that packaging these rights together could help “eliminate some tensions between rival media companies airing the same games.”
The report goes on to explain that Telemundo has claimed “some unknown population of English speakers” who are watching the games via Peacock, which has “dampened” Fox’s potential World Cup reach. According to a recent report by NPR, 20 percent of Telemundo’s World Cup viewers say English is their “primary language.”
It seems Telemundo has been intentional about this initiative as well. The network tapped actor Owen Wilson, who is not Latino nor known to speak Spanish, for an ad campaign ahead of the World Cup. A Telemundo announcer even broke into English during a recent match, thanking non-Spanish-speaking viewers for tuning in.
The trend isn’t all that surprising, either. Viewers who consume content solely through streaming, rather than a traditional multichannel package or antenna, can purchase a Peacock subscription for $10.99 per month and access every game during the World Cup. Fox One, on the other hand, runs $19.99 per month.
Outside of price, there seems to be a cohort of English-speaking viewers that simply prefer Telemundo’s coverage to Fox’s, be that for the exciting goal calls, not cutting to commercial during hydration breaks, or avoiding Alexi Lalas.
To be sure, Telemundo has more than carried its weight from a viewership perspective this World Cup. Through the group stage, the network was averaging 4.6 million viewers per match, about half of which is coming via streaming on Peacock. Fox, by comparison, was averaging just over 5 million viewers per match through the group stage. If the one-in-five Telemundo viewers whose primary language is English opted to watch on Fox instead, Fox would stand to bring in millions more viewers throughout the span of the World Cup.
According to Sherman, this tension is, in part, why FIFA will look to sell both the English and Spanish rights together for its next two men’s World Cups.
The post There is reportedly ‘tension’ between Fox, NBC as Telemundo courts English speakers for World Cup appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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