Samsung expands its TV Plus range with more free channels and entertainment

Samsung is adding additional material to TV Plus, its free, ad-supported streaming service accessible on the web and incorporated into a variety of Samsung devices. Top Gear, Law & Order Special Victims Unit, NCIS, and Chicago Fire are among the new series included in the update.

In addition to the new series, TV Plus will get two unique Samsung-owned channels: Ride or Drive, a station for automobile enthusiasts, and Samsung Showcase, a channel for “concerts, events, and special programming.” It’s also collaborating with A&E to establish Home.Made.Nation, a new home improvement channel.

While Samsung currently provides various local and national news channels, such as ABC News Live, CBS News, NBC News Now, and others, the company says it aims to expand local news and weather coverage to additional parts of the United States. It also plans to more than quadruple its video-on-demand collection by 2023 via “new and expanded agreements” with Lionsgate, Vice Media, and others.

Samsung TV Plus has been available since 2015 when it was first introduced. The service is pre-installed on TVs produced in 2016 or later, as well as some Galaxy smartphones and Family Hub refrigerator models. Last year, Samsung introduced TV Plus on the web, making its free channels accessible to anybody who did not own a compatible Samsung device. Samsung now provides 220 channels in the United States, as well as a total of 1,600 channels spread over 24 countries.

According to Samsung, consumer watching of TV Plus has increased by 100% in the last year, with consumers streaming 3 billion hours worldwide. The overall free ad-supported TV (FAST) streaming industry has been on the rise as well, with contenders such as Paramount’s Pluto TV, NBC’s Peacock, Fox’s Tubi, Amazon Freevee (formerly IMDb Freedive and IMDb TV), Roku, and Comcast’s Xumo filling the gap for those who don’t have linear TV but don’t want to pay for a streaming service. According to a January analysis from data analytics firm Kantar, 18 percent of US homes currently use a FAST service, a figure that has more than quadrupled year over year.