It seems like the days for the fox on Philippine TV are already numbered.
During the Disney Investors Day last December 10, The Walt Disney Company unveiled their plans for the next few years.
Apart from reporting the growth that their streaming businesses felt this year, Disney also shared the news about the expansion of the flagship Disney+ outside of the USA in 2021.
Areas include the Europe, Middle East, and Africa markets, along with Asia – Hong Kong, and Singapore to name a few.
There would, however, be a huge difference with the North American variant of the the Disney Plus service once it launches in Asia. It would be the inclusion of an in-app sixth tile that would be named Star. The brand will be the home of general entertainment content, which would primarily targets the teens and young adults by putting together all 18+/mature-rated content from Disney. In the USA, those types of content are relegated to Hulu.
Apart from that, as an in-service tile in Asia, Star would only carry titles and IPs owned by Disney and would not be including those produced by third parties. Along with that tiling position, Disney+ has since launched in India and Indonesia as Disney+ Hotstar last April. The said hybrid service is one of the effect of the 21st Century merger, with Hotstar being launched first as Fox’s streaming service the Indian market prior to the merger in 2015.
Just a side note, Star as the sixth Disney+ tile would also not be available for Latin America. Instead, a dedicated Star+ service would be launched and a mix of general entertainment and sports/live sports content from ESPN(+).
Now, if the brand seems familiar to many, it is simply it was the brand used of News Corporation’s television assets in Asia. Prime examples are Star World, Star Movies, and Star Sports. Those three channels have since been rebranded to FOXLife, FOX Movies, and FOX Sports, respectively, amidst the height of changes inside 21st Century Fox/News Corp. in mid-2010s.
But as the merger between Disney and 21CF was completed in 2019, the FOX branding across the now-Disney owned ptroperties became obsolete.
It was seen first in the major renaming of the 85 year old icon 20th Century Fox studios to 20th Century Studios in February. Followed by Fox Searchlight to Searchlight and 20th Century Fox Television to simply 20th Television, among others.
The widespread retirement of the Fox brand across the house of mouse’s portfolio would then be extended outside of North America. Remember Latin America earlier? Aside from getting Star+, the entire slate of Fox channels in the continent would also be aligned to the Star brand beginning February 2021. The South American Fox channel, for example, would become the Star channel, Foxlife would be Star Life, and so on.
The rebranding to Star also seemed to be logical for Disney as it’s part of the IP that they have obtained through the merger. This is due to the fact that Star remained active in China and India in spite of the “Fox-ing” of channels in Southeast Asia.
Should these changes across Disney also begin arriving onto our shores, how would the future of Fox channels in the Philippines (or even Southeast Asia) look like.
A very intelligent guess would be the revival of Star TV in the Philippines. There would be a main difference, however. For one, Star would now pick up from where the Fox channel would leave.
With the current lineup of Fox channels in the Philippines as the primary basis, the renaming of those to Star would result to the following:
Fox Channel > Star Channel
Fox Life > Star Life
Fox Movies > Star Movies
Fox Family Movies > Star Family Movies
Fox Action Movies > Star Action Movies
Fox Sports > Star Sports/ESPN
While the Star could apply best for the general entertainment offerings, the decision is for Disney to make with the sports channels. While ESPN claims to be the “worldwide leader in sports”, its unavailablity in most parts of Asia would dispute that. Thus, the revival of ESPN as a replacement for Fox Sports would be the better option than Star Sports.
With the National Geographic network being an entity of its own, it would not be that much affected by any motion to rebrand the Fox-named channels.
As Disney’s aggressively making the move to drop the heritage-rich Fox brand from their entire portfolio, it seems that the only way to go for the mouse is to follow the star. A decision that took quite some time to materialize, but is understandably necessary for them.
But it’s not just the Star’s revival and expansion across the world that made waves during the investors day. There have since been uncertainty casted on the future of Disney’s namesake television channel across the world — a topic that is best reserved for a separate article.