Discovery Inc. is planning to throw their hat into the streaming game as the company will launch a new service. During their Q2 2020 earnings call this morning, CEO David Zaslav revealed the company has been working on a streamer that would serve as a companion to the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. No name or launch date were revealed, but he said that information will be disclosed soon.
“Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ … have built the road and they all have … scripted series and scripted movies,” Zaslav stated. “Our [service] will be filled with large fresh content, a huge amount of original content, and it comes at a time where people, because of quarantine, have been consuming and consuming Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon and what’s on these different AVOD and SVOD services and they’ve been picking at them. So we think we’ll launch with a differentiated service, which will be useful every day, all the time and will have all the characters you love, which really differentiates us. We think it’s gonna be a terrific companion.”
Late last year, Discovery launched Food Network Kitchen, in collaboration with Amazon. The service was made available through Amazon Alexa and Echo Show, Fire Tablets, Fire TV streaming media devices and Fire TV Edition smart TVs. (It can also be found on Apple iOS and Android mobile devices.)
Under Discovery’s three-year agreement with Amazon, Food Network Kitchen will be integrated with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to provide hands-free navigation while users are making their meals. Alexa is also the exclusive voice service for Food Network Kitchen under the partnership. The collaboration with Amazon also allows Food Network Kitchen users to order groceries and have them delivered through Amazon Fresh in select cities as well as Peapod and Instacart.
In late April, the e-commerce giant announced their U.S. customers would have access to the streaming service free of charge for a year. Amazon was Discovery’s launch partner when they debuted Food Network Kitchen back in October.