Staff were informed today their services would no longer be required with the service to be overseen by technology and operations teams.
Despite a major marketing campaign TV Blackbox can reveal streaming news service FLASH will undergo significant changes due to a lack of subscribers.
Since its launch in October 2021 the service has failed to resonate and figures released by the company in November showed just 15,000 people were paying for the service.
According to the sales pitch:
Flash gives you access to 25+ sources of local, world, sport and business news. Stream CNN International, Al Jazeera, Sky News, FOX News Channel, BBC World News, CNBC & many more. Plus, stay up to date on all the latest headlines with your daily News Flash.
But now the service will no longer include original daily and curated editorial content through FlashNav, Flashpoints, Minis and Topics.
In order to “future-proof” the service, focus will shift to live channels with the addition of NBC News Now and MSNBC News in March.
The entire editorial team are being let go with automated curation and news source programming supported by the technology and operations team.
Some of that editorial team, led by Kate de Brito and James Law, will move into other parts of the News Corp business while the rest will be made redundant.
Julian Ogrin, the CEO of Kayo, BINGE and Flash, sent out an email to staff today advising of the changes, saying:
“Our big insight during 2022 was that over 85% of Flash viewing is live channels. What that tells us is that we should focus our continuing investment in Flash on channel and source diversity.
Ogrin went on to thank staff for their work in launching the streaming service, adding:
“I have no doubt that Kate and James will go on to bigger and better things in the News Corp family given their outstanding leadership since launch and more recently, in reimagining a new future for Flash. We will share more news on this soon.
“I want to acknowledge that some of the first-year Flash team will, unfortunately, leave the business. These are alumni of Australia’s best streaming business. They will leave us as we implement these changes from later this week with our gratitude and thanks. They have done incredible work, and I know they will be sought after for their next role.
Despite the setback for staff, Ogrin maintained
“Flash is a core streaming offering for the Foxtel Group,
For our subscribers, the core Flash streaming service won’t change. It will continue to be reimagined. We will continue to offer more than 4000 hours of live programming every week and more than 1100 news shows and documentaries. Our subscribers will see us focus on the vast array of live news sources and channels we offer via the platform. This will continue to be supported by Hero and Tile carousels. It’s all the things that the subscribers value most about Flash.
Earlier this week Foxtel Group would not reveal the current number of paying subscribers to the service at News Corp’s Q2 FY23 results announcement.
This was never going to do well, people don’t like to pay for news. Should have just added an option to pay an extra $5-$10 on top of Kayo/Binge for the news channels.
They can not compete against the likes of the free ABC News 24 web stream and TV channel and ABC News websites. Hence the Murdoch media pathological hatred of anything ABC which stretches back to the Sir Keith Murdoch era.
Colin Tyrrell Good grief your bias is showing. Sky News is my go to every day of the week. That’s my bias. I don’t understand this Murdoch dislike. There HAS to be two points of view. Without Murdoch there would be one. Socialist countries have one.
That is the answer I expected.
That is the answer I expected.
I was offered 3 months free and I looked at what they were offering, and declined. I’d happily pay for news, but not crap news.
This is part of the wider job cuts at News Corp.
https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/09/news-corp-job-cuts-missed-estimates
But the content is such high quality, I mean look at Sky News! 🤣🤣🤣
I have it for free as being a premium foxtel residential customer. Never used it. The thing is most of the international channels on there, you can watch for free on YouTube. And no way I would directly oay for sky news Australia