WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY AND U-NEXT EXTEND SVOD AGREEMENT IN JAPAN

Warner Bros. Discovery and U-NEXT today announced an extension of their relationship with a renewed SVOD deal. The agreement sees U-NEXT continue as the streaming home of HBO in Japan, bringing world-class new and returning series, as well as more than 2,300 episodes of library content, to its millions of platform subscribers.

Featuring exclusive content rights for HBO, HBO Original and HBO Max Original series, the strengthened agreement includes:

• Current and future seasons of HBO’s most-watched series in the world, including House of the Dragon, The Last of Us and Succession

• Returning acclaimed HBO Original and HBO Max Original series including True Detective: Night Country, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty and And Just Like That…

• Highly anticipated HBO Original and HBO Max Original series including The Idol, White House Plumbers, and Love & Death

• Exclusive Japanese premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s Full Circle

• Extensive library of more than 2,300 episodes from HBO’s esteemed portfolio, including newly available titles such as The Deuce, The Newsroom and Six Feet Under

Tenshin Tsutsumi, CEO of U-NEXT Co., Ltd., said: “The collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery, which began in April 2021, has produced great results as a strategic partnership. We have been able to deliver high-quality titles from HBO and HBO Max, the pinnacle of U.S. entertainment, to audiences as quickly as possible, and we feel that the number of opportunities for people to engage with our service through these titles has also increased. We will continue to add to the HBO lineup with a growing library of over 2,300 episodes, while major titles are in the pipeline.”

James Gibbons, President & MD, Western Pacific, Warner Bros. Discovery, said: “Warner Bros. Discovery’s world-leading entertainment continues to be extremely popular with Japanese audiences and we are pleased to extend our partnership with U-NEXT which has delivered strong success to date. This renewed deal reflects our ambition to build further scale across the entire ecosystem of our business, with future optionality that enables us to reach as broad an audience as possible across multiple platforms.”

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About Warner Bros. Discovery:

Warner Bros. Discovery (Nasdaq: WBD) is a leading global media and entertainment company that creates and distributes the world’s most differentiated and complete portfolio of content and brands across television, film and streaming. Available in more than 220 countries and territories and 50 languages, Warner Bros. Discovery inspires, informs and entertains audiences worldwide through its iconic brands and products including: Discovery Channel, discovery+, CNN, DC, Eurosport, HBO, HBO Max, HGTV, Food Network, OWN, Investigation Discovery, TLC, Magnolia Network, TNT, TBS, truTV, Travel Channel, MotorTrend, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Games, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies, Discovery en Español, Hogar de HGTV and others. For more information, please visit www.wbd.com.

About U-NEXT:

U-NEXT is Japan’s leading video streaming platform, currently providing the largest volume of SVOD content in Japan (Source: February 2023, GEM Partners). In addition to the over 260,000 movies, live action and animated series available for on-demand streaming, U-NEXT also provides over 40,000 digital rentals of the most recently aired series and theatrically released features, as well as a selection of over 880,000 manga, e-books and e-magazines. U-NEXT provides a unique entertainment experience amongst Japan’s digital platforms, giving subscribers the opportunity to seamlessly enjoy electronic publications, video content, live streaming of concerts, musicals, theater, and more within a single application.

Media contact:

Selina Govan

Head of Communications, Asia Pacific, Warner Bros. Discovery

+65 9249 3094 | selina_govan@discovery.com

Categorised in: Industry News, Member News

This post was written by Warner Bros. Discovery