In a recent earnings call, Warner Bros. David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery, disclosed that the company is considering developing a free, ad-supported service of its own. This won’t occur anytime soon, to be clear. Warner Brothers Discovery must initially concentrate on establishing the paid streaming service.
The Big Plan
The corporation is expecting that a FAST service will serve as a “entry point” for customers once such service is available. According to JB Perrette of Warner Bros., the programming provided on the company’s free, ad-supported TV service “would be totally different than the content that will be in our premium SVOD offering.” President and CEO of gaming and streaming at Discovery.
Backed by Numbers
Warner Bros., as noted by Perrette, Across all of its networks, Discovery maintains a collection of more than 100,000 television episodes. According to Perrette, some of that programming would make more sense on a free streaming service than on a paid one.
Regardless of when Warner Bros. decides to make its move, If Discovery decides to introduce its own free streaming service, it will be somewhat behind the curve. The expanding FAST market is already contested by other significant media organizations. Fox offers Tubi, Pluto TV from Paramount, Freevee from Amazon, Xumo from Comcast, and The Roku Channel from Roku.
