Redbox has beefed up its push into free live-streaming video, part of its ongoing strategy to further diversify the business beyond its trademark brick-red DVD vending machines and digital on-demand sales.
First launched in February, Redbox’s ad-supported Free Live TV service has added Tastemade’s food, travel, and home and design streaming network along with Altice News’ Cheddar news channel. The Redbox over-the-top streaming destination now has 60 live channels.
Redbox Free Live presents content in a TV-like grid, similar to ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV and Comcast’s Xumo. The lineup includes three themed movie channels: Redbox Rush (action movies), Redbox Comedy and the general-entertainment Redbox Movies.
In the past few weeks, Redbox Free Live TV also added 18 channels: Condé Nast’s Wired and Architectural Digest, Black News Channel, CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corp.), Go Traveler, Outdoor America, Hard Knocks Fighting, PBS’s America’s Test Kitchen, Complex, The Design Network, Real Nosey, Funny or Die, beIN Sports, Outside TV, Chive TV, Thrill One, Voyager Documentaries, Hungry, and Just for Laughs Gags.
Other channels in Redbox Free Live TV include TMZ, USA Today, Bloomberg Television and Jukin Media’s FailArmy.
Privately held Redbox, which is owned by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management, doesn’t disclose financial results. But before it went private four years ago, the company’s core business of renting new-release DVDs had been on a downward trajectory amid the growth of internet streaming video.
For its live TV streaming service, Redbox has seen “significant viewership growth” in the news, lifestyle and food categories, according to Chris Yates, GM of Redbox On Demand. “We’re excited to continue growing our Free Live TV offering with great new content, increasing our distribution and adding new features to help our customers find and watch great content however they want to watch it,” Yates said.
Last year, Redbox launched Redbox Entertainment, a new division to produce and distribute original content across its available through Redbox VOD and at the company’s 41,000-plus DVD kiosks across the U.S.
Redbox Free Live TV is available on the web at redbox.com, Roku, iOS and Android devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Vizio Smart TVs, LG TVs and Google’s Chromecast. There’s no login needed to stream the channels.