Sony announced today that it is rolling out its Live TV offering to PlayStation 5 owners in the U.S., where it’s available for free with ads. At present, the offering includes over 100 channels for players, including movies, shows, sports, news and weather, as well as assorted additional entertainment channels. Sony expressed interest in expanding to Canadian users in the future.
The service is available to all users who sign up with their PlayStation accounts. There are no details on which advertisers will be serving players via this offering, but Sony insists that it is completely free and requires no subscription cost.
Variety reports that this is an attempt by Sony to bring advertisers to an otherwise disinterested gaming audience. Peter Wood, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s EVP of consumer platforms and services, told them in an interview, “When you look at sort of the habits and behaviors of this community, they are gaming and engaging with video and they’re probably not showing up in other connected TV environments often… I don’t think it’s rocket science to look at trying to remove the friction of content discovery across different media”
The programming currently available for American PlayStation 5 users includes:
- Free movies via channels MovieSphere by Lionsgate, 50 Cent Action, FilmRise Free Movies, Sony One Horror Hits and Cinevault (which comes out to hundreds of thousands of movies)
- TV shows on their own dedicated channels, including Community, The Walking Dead and Forensic Files (and many more)
- Sports via FOX Sports, NASCAR, NBC Sports Now and UFC channels, among others
- Live news and weather from NBC News Now, Fox Weather and LiveNOW from FOX
- Anime programming via Crunchyroll, including Sailor Moon, Naruto and Death Note as well as Crunchyroll’s Box Set
- Other programming that includes creator-focused channels, such as Hot Ones, Idle Mode, esports, podcasts and other special programming
Grace Chen, VP of Sony’s network advertising, loyalty and licensed merch, said in the PlayStation Blog announcement, “Live TV on PS5 will continue to evolve with regularly refreshed programming, new channels and additional content over time. We’re also looking to expand the experience to Canada and will continue to explore additional regions.”