Warner Bros. Discovery has signed content deals with Roku and Tubi for a selection of its free, ad-supported channels.
The Fox-owned Tubi will add more than 225 advertising video-on-demand titles from WBD and 14 WB-branded FAST channels, including the launch of three brand-specific channels, WB TV Watchlist, WB TV Keeping It Real and WB TV All Together, to feature some of WBD’s popular content, including all seasons of Westworld, Raised by Wolves, Legendary, FBoy Island, The Nevers, Finding Magic Mike, Head of the Class and The Time Traveler’s Wife. The titles will begin rolling out in February.
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Roku has made a similar deal with WBD and plans to create WBD-branded channels for titles such as Westworld, The Bachelor, Cake Boss, Say Yes to the Dress and FBoy Island, as well as about 2,000 hours of on-demand library programming. The channels will launch The Roku Channel in spring 2023.
In December, WBD announced that it would be licensing bundles of its shows to third-party free, ad-supported streaming services, highlighting Westworld and several titles mentioned above. This came as the company continues on its cost-cutting ventures, while trying to maximize profit for the newly merged media giant.
At the time, WBD also said The Gordita Chronicles, Love Life, Minx and Made for Love would be coming off the HBO Max platform to be potentially licensed to third-party FAST platforms. Those titles do not appear to have been part of the Tubi and Roku deals.
On the FAST side, the full series and programming additions to their libraries is the kind of content that is likely to keep viewers on the platform longer.
“Warner Bros. Discovery has a catalogue that TV lovers can’t get enough of and Tubi is proudly making many of these recent hits from Warner Bros. Discovery available to new audiences this month,” said Adam Lewinson, chief content officer of Tubi. “From critically acclaimed and groundbreaking to lighthearted and addicting, our new WB-branded FAST channels and on-demand offering will speak to each of Tubi’s distinct audience communities.”
Rob Holmes, vp programming at Roku, added, “As FAST continues to explode in popularity amongst cord-cutters, we’re seeing content players increasingly shift their focus towards capturing this audience, by bringing some of their best stuff to FAST. The rapid expansion of premium content on FAST is a win for both the viewer and content owner, as well as advertisers looking to reach these audiences through well-known programming.”
