Inside Plex’s Quest to Become a One-Stop Shop for Digital Media

Get ready for yet another ad-supported video service: Media center app maker Plex is gearing up to add free movies and TV shows to its app, starting with content from Warner Bros. Plex announced a deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution Thursday, which will allow it to add a still-unspecified amount of the studio’s movie catalog to its app when it launches ad-supported video streaming later this year. But Plex isn’t just looking to compete with ad-supported video services like Tubi and Pluto. Instead, the company is aiming to turn its app into a kind of one-stop-shop for digital media, capable of serving up anything you might want. To that end, Plex has plans to begin reselling video subscription services via its app, and add transactional VOD, in the first half of 2020. “You shouldn’t have to go to a lot of different apps to get the content you care about,” said Plex CEO Keith Valory in a recent conversation with Variety. “This is going to be the one place for the media that matters most to you,” added the company’s vice president of marketing Scott Hancock.