As early as 2013, rumors have been circulating of Discovery bundling it’s channels and launching its own $5 streaming service. The rumor mill flared up again last year when Discovery acquired Scripps, adding HGTV, Food Network, and Travel Channel to their library. Now with the launch of their cooking app Food Network Kitchen, the question arises again whether or not Discovery will take advantage of their viewership and bundle their channels into an à la carte streaming service.
At the CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” event in Beverly Hills earlier today, Discovery’s CEO David Zaslav didn’t sound like a streaming service was in the company’s immediate plan.
“For now, what we’re doing is we’re watching the seven or eight great media companies that are fighting over entertainment, whether that’s HBO or Showtime or Disney Plus or Netflix, they’re all doing entertainment scripted and movies, Zaslav said at the event. “So, we see ourselves as differentiated. Right now, we’re offering a lot of our products individually, like we’re offering Golf and Cycling. But in Europe, we do have an aggregated sports product. We have the ability to aggregate and we’ve never been stronger in the U.S.”
He added that Discovery is now the largest media company for women in the U.S. which is mainly thanks to channels like HGTV and Food Network. But a potential shift into the bundled streaming world may still be in the cards.
“I think everything is on the table,” Zaslav said. “The interesting moment for us is that everybody on the entertainment side needs more content. So, we’re talking to each of the major players about — they’ve been talking to us whether we want to provide more or some content to them. And for now, we’ve decided not to. We think we can either go individually, with food and home and Oprah and Chip and Jo and Crime. Or we could aggregate here in the U.S. And we’ll look over the next year and determine what we want to do.”
Right now, you can watch Discovery-owned channels like TLC, HGTV, ID, Food Network, and Animal Planet on Philo for $20 a month.
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