Later this year, Plex will start offering access to free ad-supported movies and TV shows from within its app. Next year, it will start selling access to premium content, the company told Variety.
Premium content on Plex
Plex is probably best known as a media player solution for movies and other media stored on a local server at home. The company has grander plans by "taming the growing chaos in the media landscape".
- “Plex has always been about solving new media challenges, and our mission is to tame the growing chaos in the media landscape," said Keith Valory, Plex CEO. "Licensing these movies from Warner Bros. enables us to offer more types of third-party content than any other platform and bring it all together in one beautiful solution. Premium ad-supported movies and shows deserve first-class treatment alongside other content that consumers enjoy daily, as opposed to being orphaned in yet another stand-alone app.”
The plan involves offering access to free ad-supported movies and TV shows from Warner Bros later this year. This is similar to how IMDb TV, the Roku Channel, and Tubi operates.
Next year, Plex is planning to begin reselling video subscription services via its app, the company confirmed to Variety. It also wants to add 'transactional VOD' where viewers can rent/purchase movies on a title-by-title basis - like iTunes.
- Source: Plex, Variety