Discovery CEO Says Company Plans ‘Global Attack’ With New Streaming Service, Just Like Disney

Back in August, Discovery announced they were planning to launch a new streaming service, that would be a companion to the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. Since then, the company has been quite tight-lipped about the pending service.

During the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference today, however, company CEO David Zaslav divulged a bit of information regarding the company’s strategy with the new service. According to Zaslav, Discovery has been eyeing Disney’s global expansion and they plan on launching their service as a global offering as well.

“We’re one of the few companies we own all of our content. We’ve been aggressively driving additional original content. We think you need a substantial amount of original content. But we have brands, we have great creative, we’ve been working our overall approach to the market, and we will come to market with a global attack,” Zaslav stated.

“Disney has done it. They’re starting to roll out globally and it’s quite impressive. One of the things that Bob [Iger] has done, I think, very successfully is when you look at Disney+ from a curation perspective, you see a group of superfans, whether it’s the Disney Kids product, Pixar, Star Wars, or Marvel people look at that and they go, ‘That’s what I love…’ Outside the U.S., we have entertainment, local entertainment, local content, local sports. So I think we have a very differentiated global approach, but we think you need to have a lot of content, [and show] why people will love you and why they’ll need you.”

With the plan for a massive global expansion, Zaslav also revealed that the company working on curating more original content for the upcoming streamer. He did not allude to a launch date or name for a service, though revealed the company would be making an announcement “very soon.”

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.)

The Magnolia Network, their new joint venture with Chip and Joanna Gaines (which will have streaming component), is set to launch in 2021, along with a reboot of “Fixer Upper.” The original launch for the network was set for Oct. 4, 2020, but it has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.