It's Just Lunch: Fox Sports Launching Five New Weekly Webcasts

By John Ourand, Staff Writer

Billick's "Coachspeak" To Be Part Of Fox Sport's "Lunch w/Benefits"

Fox Sports is launching its most ambitious digital play to date, setting up a digital entertainment division and rolling out five Webcasts that it will update weekly. Fox Sports Interactive Senior VP/Operations Jeff Husvar will oversee the Fox Sports Digital Entertainment unit, reporting directly to Fox Sports Chair David Hill. Fox beginning Monday will launch five webisodes each weekday at 1:00pm ET under the marketing banner "Lunch ­w/ Benefits." Fox is trying to appeal to office workers as they go on their lunch break, saying research shows that lunchtime is considered primetime online. The shows will be between 20-30 minutes long and will be updated once a week. The first show to launch will be "The Afterparty with Jay Glazer" (Monday), followed by "Coachspeak with Brian Billick" (Tuesday), "The College Experiment" (Wednesday), "Cubed" (Thursday) and "Inside Call" (Friday), with Fox NFL Sunday talent. There is a pipeline of about six other shows that are set to replace shows that do not perform well. Husvar said he expects about 50,000-100,000 concurrent streams for each show. "Not all will resonate," Husvar said. "We will continue to roll out more concepts. We're committed to this endeavor for the foreseeable future." The Billick show soft-launched yesterday and can be seen on FoxSports.com.

RUBIK'S CUBED: The show likely to create the most buzz is "Cubed," where three "office drones" talk about sex and sports, often using foul language. Fox' release says, "Nothing is off limits as this show plans to push the line as far as it will go. ... The easily offended would be advised to surf elsewhere." Fox is selling ads to support the show and will integrate them using pre-roll and product integration. So far, three of the five shows have sold, though Husvar would not identify which shows or advertisers have climbed on board. Fox Sports' George Greenberg and Judy Hoang and FoxSports.com' Ed Bunnell will be part of the digital entertainment unit, reporting to Husvar.