Eagles-Chiefs: Fox One Fumbles Big Opportunity to Shine

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – Follow me on X.

TV Answer Man, I watched the Eagles and Chiefs on the new Fox One app but the picture was disappointing. It was blurry sometimes and not sharp at all. Is this the best they can do? I won’t be renewing if it is. – Gene, Pittsburgh.

Gene, Fox One, the new $19.99 a month streaming service which offers live feeds of all Fox channels without need of a cable/satellite subscription, yesterday showed the much-anticipated Super Bowl rematch between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. The streamer, which launched late last month, heavily promoted the game during the week, clearly looking to use it to attract new subscribers.

But I agree with you that the Fox One picture, which was 720p HD, the same as your local Fox affiliate, was disappointing and might have turned away some new viewers. The colors were bland and the details were dull. It felt like you were looking at the game through a soft filter that toned down the sharpness of the image.

Of course, this is not uncommon with a 720p HD picture, the lowest standard for High-Definition. The 1080i HD picture found on CBS’ NFL games is sharper and the 1080p HD images (the highest HD standard) on Amazon’s Thursday Night Football are vivid, realistic, and exceptionally detailed. For $20 a month, a premium price for a streaming service, you would hope that Fox One would match Amazon. (Apple TV Plus, another premium streaming service, uses 1080p HD for its MLB games as does Peacock for its Big Ten football and NFL broadcasts.)

But Fox One is choosing to use 720p HD for its NFL and college football games (the exception being the few college games available each weekend in upscaled 4K). In contrast, ESPN’s new Unlimited app, which also launched late last month, offers most of its live NFL and college football contests in 1080p HD. And when it does, the picture is sensational. You can understand why someone would pay $30 a month for the ESPN app; it’s a premium experience.

There were plenty of viewers yesterday who noticed, and were also upset, by Fox One’s mediocre picture. At the AVS Forum, a message board for 1080p HD/4K viewers of NFL games, several fans registered their disappointment:

“All the hype for this game you would think they would sent the A truck if they have one,” said one poster, suggesting that Fox did not use its top production facilities for the broadcast.

“Fox One and DIRECTV Stream both look similarly mediocre for me, but at least DIRECTV has 5.1 audio – only 2.0 on the Fox app,” wrote another viewer.

“The FOX Philly station is sending 1080P over ATSC 3.0 (HEVC Codec). Of course, it is converted from 720P. The video is very good, not great, but much better than what we were seeing on FOX ONE or ATSC 1.0. As a fan of OTA, we say FREE is good,” said one fan, suggesting you could get a better picture for free over the air via antenna.

My guess is that Fox is offering the same picture quality as the local Fox affiliate, which again is 720p HD, because it does not want to upstage the affiliate; otherwise, people might watch the app instead of the affiliate which would hurt its ratings.

But if you’re going to ask people to pay $20 a month, which is more than most subscriptions to Netflix, HBO Max and Hulu, you should provide the best picture possible for a high profile game like the Eagles and Chiefs.

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