What WBD’s Free Streaming Service Could Mean for Adult Swim
Ever since big tele-conglomo, AT&T gave up ownership of Warner Bros. to merge with Discovery, there have been massive shakeups. The bloodletting of shows and movies that were either out or in development, dropping certain programming from HBOmax, and to that point, the uncertainties as to whether or not they’ll merge streaming apps together/separately/something? While we wait to see what happens with (what we’re presuming, but hoping isn’t just called “Max”) an article in Bloomberg this week presented another option: Warner Bros. Discovery has plans to start a second (or third) streaming service that will be free and ad-supported (aka a FAST – Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) that they’re calling “WBTV“.
In this day and age, the FAST apps are just as in-demand as the premium ones. PlutoTV (one of the first, and now owned by Paramount Global) has been one of the most successful, likewise Tubi (Fox Network’s FAST), and Freevee (formerly IMDBtv, owned by Amazon). With the networks snatching up FAST apps, it only stands to reason that WBD would benefit from their own. The question is, what content would they place on the app?
Recently, we’ve seen kind of a swap out of content from the paid apps to the FAST ones… WBD in particular has been taking content (I.e.: Westworld and FBoy Island) off of HBO max and loaning it out to the Roku Channel. Between Adult Swim content being removed as well programming that never made it to HBO max, it only stands to reason that a lot of this content would benefit on WBTV. Not only the ones that are/will be taken down, but also talking about the lesser known titles that never made it to HBO max. The more “underground” titles such as Stroker & Hoop, Saul of the Molemen, Fat Guy Stuck in Internet, or Emmy award winners such as Childrens Hospital and and a dozen others.
Between what has and what hasn’t already been streamed, the potential to bring classic/current content to an entirely new audience seems endless and worth putting on WBTV. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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