When Fox agreed to sell the bulk of its entertainment assets to Disney, in 2017, the company essentially used the transaction to articulate its own vision for the future of media. At the time, Fox executives viewed streaming as a haven for general entertainment programming. So after the deal closed, they doubled down on live programming to feed their linear channels and preserve the integrity of the company’s cable bundle offering. At the time, they were generally derided for their conservative and analog approach. But they’d be laughing all the way to the bank as Paramount and Comcast subsequently lost billions of dollars building out their own direct-to-consumer services.