You don’t need to hit the gym to get ready for summer—just grab your phone or tablet. Beachbody CEO Carl Daikeler is laser-focused on bringing his at-home fitness brand to the evolving world of digital. Beachbody On Demand allows customers to access the company’s library of at-home workouts via an app accessible on OTT boxes and mobile devices. “We’ve created a Netflix of health and fitness and combined it with a Facebook of health and fitness,” he told Yahoo Finance.
Daikeler, who co-founded Beachbody in 1998, says the app is a big step forward in updating the DVD-centric company and also helps curb illegal downloads. Because the workouts have a low price point, Daikeler says people are more likely to pony up rather than take the time and effort to pirate them.
“There were years where we would estimate [our losses] at 20% of the revenue we would’ve earned if people hadn’t been burning [our content] or uploading it to torrent sites,” he said. For a company that reached $1 billion in sales in 2015, those losses can easily be estimated in the millions—if not hundreds of millions—of dollars.
Yahoo Finance gave Beachbody On Demand a trial run, and for the most part, we liked what we saw. First of all, the price is indeed right. The $40 for 3 months or $99 for 1 one year (billed upfront, not monthly) beats the prices in an era where the average gym membership is upwards of $50 per month. I’ve paid exorbitant NYC gym prices for nearly 10 years, so having access to dozens of different workouts seems downright frugal.
The workouts are varied enough for both the casually fit and hardcore fitness buffs, and the app is fairly easy to navigate. And the fact that you don’t have to break the bank to break a sweat should help Daikeler keep the pirates at bay—for now.
Rob Smith is a reporter and producer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @robsmithonline
