Philo revs up its FAST strategy as subs exceed 1M

LAS VEGAS – CES 2024 – The pay-TV industry is in a tough spot. Traditional service providers are losing subscribers at record levels, grappling with rising programming costs and trying to bundle in premium streaming services to ensure that new movies and TV shows can still be accessed on their platforms.

Meanwhile, virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) are taking up some of the slack. However, they are not immune to rising programming costs, which have forced many of them to raise their rates.

One vMVPD bucking that trend is Philo. As a pay-TV streaming service delivering 70-plus entertainment and lifestyle channels – including HGTV, Discovery, Hallmark Channel and AMC – Philo sells for just $25 per month. That price has stayed the same in recent years even as Philo, which now tops more than 1 million subscribers, has added channels to its lineup.

Among recent moves, Philo has been complementing its regular lineup with dozens of free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels.

Light Reading caught up with Philo CEO Andrew McCollum following his fireside chat here at CES 2024 to provide an update on the company's focus and strategies and its evolving business model.

Creative packaging

McCollum says Philo remains open to the idea of developing new packages with news and sports programing… if the price is right and programmers become more flexible in the way they allow their channels to be packaged. He believes opportunities to package sports and news creatively and economically could arise as the media sector continues to consolidate.

"There gets to be a point where there's just so many networks under one roof that you just can't enforce the idea that everyone has to carry every single one of them," he says.

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