Warner Bros. Discovery reaches deals with Roku and Tubi to license 2,000 hours of content, including ‘Westworld’

Warners Bros. Discovery has reached deals with Roku and Tubi to license 2,000 hours of movies and TV shows, the companies announced on Tuesday. The deal will bring Warner Bros.-branded free, ad-supported channels to the two streaming services. The channels will feature many popular titles, including HBO’s “Westworld,” which was recently removed from the HBO Max library.

The FAST channels will also include “The Bachelor,” “Cake Boss,” “Say Yes to the Dress,” “F-Boy Island,” “Raised by Wolves,” “Legendary,” “The Nevers,” “Finding Magic Mike,” “Head of the Class,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “My Cat from Hell,” “Breaking Amish,” “Caribbean Life,” “Paranormal Lockdown,” “Murder Chose Me,” “Mysteries at the Museum,” “A Wedding Story, “How It’s Made” and “My Five Wives.”

The deals mark a turn for Warner Bros. Discovery, which used to keep its movies and TV shows for HBO Max. Now, the company is licensing its content to third parties.

“As FAST continues to explode in popularity amongst cord-cutters, we’re seeing content players increasingly shift their focus towards capturing this audience, by bringing some of their best stuff to FAST,” said Rob Holmes, the VP of Programming at Roku Channel, in a statement. “The rapid expansion of premium content on FAST is a win for both the viewer and content owner, as well as advertisers looking to reach these audiences through well-known programming.

Roku says the channels will arrive in spring 2023 and that the deal will bring in hundreds of TV series and movies from Warner Bros. Discovery’s portfolio, including HBO, HBO Max, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television and more. Tubi says it will add to the platform 14 WB-branded FAST channels totaling more than 2,000 hours, starting on February 1, organized by genre.

“Warner Bros. Discovery has a catalogue that TV lovers can’t get enough of and Tubi is proudly making many of these recent hits from Warner Bros. Discovery available to new audiences this month,” said Adam Lewinson, the chief content officer at Tubi, in a statement.

The news comes as Warner Bros. Discovery fell short of expectations in Q3 2022. HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ ended the third quarter with a combined net add of 2.8 million global subscribers, bringing the total to 94.9 million, up from 92.1 million in Q2. Wall Street had anticipated a net add of 3.27 million subscribers. Analysts were bullish on revenue and expected $10.51 billion, Warner Bros. Discovery sorely missed expectations and reported a total of $9.82 billion.

The company will release its Q4 2022 earnings report next month.