BET+ Set To Launch Lower Cost, Ad-Supported Tier
BET is set to launch a lower-priced advertisement-supported tier to its BET+ streaming platform. According to Variety, the new tier will be dubbed the “BET+ Essential” version and run subscribers $5.99 monthly.
The newly established option will be available at 9 a.m. PST on June 25, 2023, the same day as this year’s BET Awards Show. Furthermore, the new alternative will also be released just in time for the debut of Average Joe—the dark comedy program starring Deon Cole, which will premiere on June 26.
BET+’s new tier is $4 cheaper than the ad-free option and will be pushed as a way for the network to grow its subscriber count—which currently boasts more than 3 million paying users. Black Entertainment Television’s president and CEO Scott Mills spoke about the new option and how much of a bump in subscribers the company plans to see from the alternative.
“We’ve been pretty conservative in terms of estimating, I think, and actually we’re going to see a far bigger number than we forecast,” he predicted. “Advertisers have just been very excited about this opportunity to to avail themselves of the expansion in reach. What our advertising partners understand is that it’s important to reach a Black audience, but it’s important to reach the Black audience in environments that the Black audience deems to be culturally relevant.
“People don’t think about how diverse the black community is. And one of the things we wanted to do with the approach to access to BET+ is to really make sure that we had as diverse array of access options as the diversity exists within our community. And so we have some people who are going to clearly prefer the premium service without the ad experience, but there are going to be a number of people who are really going to value the ability to access the service at a lower price point. And so that we really thought particularly given our insight into our community, it was a really important thing to deliver.”
Devin Griffin, BET+ exec VP/general manager, also spoke about their network’s growth since their streaming service’s inception.
“We’ve seen strong double and triple digit growth of our overall business over the last three years,” Griffin declared. “What we see is that different consumers see different value in what BET+ offers. So BET Essential will be offering the same lineup of monthly originals, a star-studded library, the deepest offering in the Black programming industry. So we’re going to be setting the table before it launches.”
BET+ Essential will release at 9 a.m. PST on June 25, 2023, priced at $5.99.
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