Plex first announced its plan to add a movie rental service at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2020, then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and those plans hit the skids. When asked what caused such a massive delay, Plex co-founder and Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski offered a frank reply.

“It was a lot harder than we thought,” Olechowski said. “Getting all the DRM [digital rights managment] stuff working everywhere — we switched DRM providers. And we had to get approval from all the studios.”

Plex also had to deal with a massive technical glitch before it could bring its rental service to market. The issue was causing streams of movies and shows on Android devices to simply shut down when they reached ad breaks. The problem took months to fix and absorbed essentially all of Plex’s engineering resources in the process. The company was forced to combat a data breach in August, though it’s unclear if this had any effect on the release of its movie rental platform.

Plex has also been splitting its focus in the last year between getting its rental service up and running and expanding its offerings of free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels. Plex doubled its FAST channel offerings in the past year to over 300, including new music channels, and its monthly active users have grown to over 16 million.

Plex is an incredibly flexible platform that’s perfect for fans of any media. It offers free, on-demand access to 50,000+ movies and TV shows, and hundreds of live TV channels as well. Plex offers a subscription tier for $4.99 per month that offers even more features for people who want more functionality, but it packs a powerful punch even in its free version.

Users can connect Plex to their computers to stream and share any media they have on their hard drives. The service even offers a Plex Arcade option where you can play dozens of Atari classics, plus your own collection of game ROMs and emulators on your favorite devices. On top of all these services, Plex will soon offer users the chance to rent hit movies and shows on its platform as well.

In the US, Cox Communication will also distribute the Revry channels. With the new launches, Revry has expanded its reach to eight live TV channels, two subscription on-demand products, and seven owned and operated “tribrid” apps in all major app stores. The Revry Premium SVOD product will be available on the Cox Contour and Contour Stream Player platforms.

A first for Revry, Plex will distribute multiple channels, including both Revry’s Live TV channel (streaming radically diverse movies and shows) and the Revry Now channel–the world’s first 24/7 queer news network–across its platform.

The Revry owned and operated apps exist as an innovative “tribrid” model offering full access to its On-Demand library with a Revry Premium Subscription (SVOD), limited access to On-Demand content for free with ads (AVOD), and–as the focus of the network–an offering of multiple ad-supported live TV channels streaming “unapolegtically queer” movies, shows, music, podcasts, and originals all day, every day. These live TV channels are also syndicated to Revry’s eight third party streaming partners including: Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Xumo TV, Stirr, TiVo+, Zapping TV, Littlstar (VR), and now Plex.

“Revry believes representation saves lives,” said Damian Pelliccione, co-founder and CEO of Revry.

“We’re overjoyed to partner with such wonderful major media companies who support our mission of bringing radically inclusive content to their mainstream audiences.”

As the first queer global streaming network, Revry’s mission has focused on embracing the diversity of its intersectional and international audiences.

“Revry’s LGBTQ+ content is an important part of the Plex programming mix, offering options that represent diversity and inclusivity in informative and entertaining ways,” said Keith Valory, CEO of Plex.

“At Plex our goal is to be the home for all the media that matters to you, providing our users with a wide range of viewing options, and it’s great to join the ranks of Cox, Samsung, and Roku in distributing content that represents the voices of so many.”

Later this year, Plex’s users in the United States will be able to access a package of library feature film titles from Warner Bros., in addition to already available content like live and recorded over-the-air television, trustworthy news, popular web shows, podcasts, and over 60 million HiFi streaming music tracks.

“Plex has always been about solving new media challenges, and our mission is to tame the growing chaos in the media landscape,” said Keith Valory, CEO of Plex. “Licensing these movies from Warner Bros. enables us to offer more types of third-party content than any other platform and bring it all together in one beautiful solution. Premium ad-supported movies and shows deserve first-class treatment alongside other content that consumers enjoy daily, as opposed to being orphaned in yet another stand-alone app.”

What began 10 years ago as a “Netflix for your personal media,” has now evolved into a diverse multi-media content platform that enables users to access all their media from any device, anytime. Plex is continuing to engage with additional partners to secure content agreements and expand its content catalogue. More information about Plex can be found athttps://www.plex.tv/.

About Plex
Plex is a popular platform for streaming all your favorite media from one beautiful app. A highly-rated app on all major devices, Plex is the most comprehensive streaming platform available, seamlessly combining, organizing, and streaming movies, TV shows, news, web shows, podcasts, music, live and recorded television, and personal media collections. With a highly-customizable interface and smart recommendations based on the media you enjoy, Plex brings its users the best media experience on the planet from any device, anywhere. For more information, please visit https://plex.tv, or follow @plex on Twitter or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/plexapp.

About Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution
Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution is one of the leading distributors of entertainment programming to the domestic television marketplace, distributing first-run syndicated series, off-network television programs and theatrical motion pictures to local broadcast television stations, as well as to pay, cable, satellite and broadcast networks and subscription video-on-demand platforms throughout the U.S.

Plex PR Contact:>
Susie Hayne
Lyman Agency
susie@lymanagency.com

Warner PR Contact:
Scott Rowe
Warner Bros.
Scott.Rowe@warnerbros.com