BET And Tyler Perry Team Up For Streaming Service Launching This Fall

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BET & Tyler Perry To Announce New Subscription Streaming Offering Later This Month

BET and Tyler Perry are set to announce a new subscription streaming offering later this month, according to reports from Deadline.

There are already more than 200 streaming services in the United States, with many of them seeking to replace carriage fees and advertising revenue with subscriptions. As technology and viewer habits and choices continue to evolve, the traditional pay-TV bundle is showing signs of strain, forcing media companies to explore new business models, like streaming.

The aforementioned BET service, which will be called BET+, will target African-American viewers and draft off of the long-term production deal between Tyler Perry and Viacom. In addition to titles from Tyler Perry Studios, the new outlet will offer TV shows and films from fellow Viacom networks MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central. Perry is expected to announce the upcoming initiative at this month’s BET Awards.

Viacom has operated a couple of SVOD services for several years, including Comedy Central Now and Noggin, which specializes in preschool programming from Nickelodeon. It has refrained from additional stand-alone launches in favor of an advertiser-friendly strategy represented by its acquisition of Pluto TV last January for $340 million–Many of Viacom’s core networks have launched AVOD streaming versions on Pluto in recent weeks.

Pricing has not yet been finalized for the upcoming BET service, but according to Deadline’s source, it will likely be more than the $3 per month for Comedy Central Now. As for Viacom, the streaming initiative comes as the company is expected to re-start merger talks with CBS, with which it shares a controlling shareholder, National Amusements.

Are you here for yet ANOTHER streaming service to add to your roster?!