Warner Bros. Discovery might launch a free, ad-supported streaming service with HBO reveals

During an earnings name this week, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav introduced that the corporate is considering launching its personal free, ad-supported service. To be clear, this gained’t occur any time quickly. Warner Bros. Discovery first has to concentrate on launching the paid streaming service that may merge HBO Max and Discovery Plus. But after that service arrives, the corporate is hoping {that a} FAST service might be an “entry point” for customers.

Warner Bros. Discovery may launch a free streaming service to compete with Tubi and Pluto

The content material supplied on the corporate’s free, ad-supported TV (FAST) service “would be totally different than the content that will be in our premium SVOD offering,” defined JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s president and CEO of streaming and video games.

Perrette identified that Warner Bros. Discovery has a library of over 100,000 episodes of TV throughout all of its networks. Some of that content material may make extra sense on a free streaming service than on a premium service, Perrette instructed analysts.

No matter when Warner Bros. Discovery opts to launch its personal free streaming service, it is going to be comparatively late to the sport. Other main media firms have already staked their declare within the exploding FAST market. Fox has Tubi, Paramount has Pluto TV, Amazon has Freevee, Comcast has Xumo, and Roku has The Roku Channel.

Ace within the gap

Of course, Warner Bros. Discovery has one thing its opponents don’t: HBO. We clearly don’t count on to see any of HBO’s latest reveals on a FAST service, however think about how enticing that service can be if it featured even one season of Game of Thrones.

To today, Game of Thrones continues to be probably the most pirated present on the planet. The sequence ended three years in the past and but pirates are nonetheless going out of their option to obtain the sequence illegally in file numbers. It’s clear that thousands and thousands of persons are prepared to go above and past to steal the present, so why not give it to them totally free with adverts?

WBD isn’t making a dime off of pirated copies, however numerous viewers would watch the present with adverts in the event that they didn’t have to join a premium service to take action. Game of Thrones can be one of many firm’s most essential properties exterior of DC, so we gained’t maintain our breath. But it could definitely catapult the FAST service to the highest of the charts.