Discovery will soon be announcing details of its long-awaited streaming service, but sources for CNBC have shared ahead of the announcement that Discovery+ will launch in January 2021 and will include a $4.99/month ad-supported tier. The sources also said that there will be a $6.99/month ad-free tier.
Discovery+ and Verizon will be partnering to give Verizon customers up to one year of the streaming service for free.
We first heard about Discovery’s plans for launching its streaming service in 2019. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has said from the beginning that the plan would be to include content from across Discovery’s portfolio of brands, including Discovery Channel, TLC, Food Network, and HGTV.
Zaslav has been fielding questions about the service regularly during quarterly earnings calls. In August, he compared the upcoming Discovery+ to “a new SUV” compared to “sportscars” like Netflix and other top streaming services. He explained that the plan is for the new service to be “useful every day,” suggesting that viewers will find series and movies that they’ll want to keep coming back to, rather than new shows that might find subscribers binge watching but not rewatching.