Sony Pictures Television is putting a new kind of screen at the center of its free ad-supported channel strategy: the PlayStation 5.
The company’s recently launched “Live TV on PS5” offering brings more than 100 free ad-supported video channels to the PlayStation 5 console in the U.S., giving Sony TV a direct path to entertainment viewers already spending significant time inside the PlayStation ecosystem.
Keith Le Goy, Sony’s TV chief, outlined the thinking behind the move Thursday during a panel conversation with Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton at the Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit presented by EY. For Sony, the pitch is not simply that PlayStation 5 users can watch TV. It is that the audience is already deeply committed to the platform — and that advertisers and channel partners want access to that kind of engagement.
“The intent is that you have 40-50 million people on PlayStation 5 who are incredibly engaged with that platform, who are spending hours and hours and hours on their favorite games, but who also love to watch entertainment,” Le Goy said.
He said the opportunity depends on making the shift from gaming to viewing feel natural, while tailoring the programming experience to that audience.
“If you can do two things, one is to curate the entertainment offering in a way that is pertinent to them, but also make it a very seamless transition from their gaming engagement to their entertainment engagement, then you have a real chance to engage an audience which traditionally has been a hard-to-reach audience for linear channels, a very hard-to-reach audience and a very attractive audience for advertisers,” he said.
The launch positions Sony to use one of its biggest consumer platforms as a new distribution lane for television-style viewing. Backed by Sony Pictures Television, “Live TV on PS5” also creates a way to put Sony TV’s available IP — and advertising tied to that content — in front of a gaming audience that might otherwise be difficult for traditional linear channels to reach.
Le Goy described the equation as beneficial for several sides of the business: viewers, channel partners and advertisers.
“If we can give that audience something that they’re going to like in an environment that they are comfortable with, give our channel partners an audience that they are going to be going after and give their advertisers an audience that’s valuable for them,” he said. “That is one plus one equaling a lot more than two.”
The PlayStation 5 FAST channel offering launched last month in the U.S. Le Goy said the plan is to roll it out across “other countries in the coming months.”
Why Sony sees an edge
Le Goy framed the PS5 television push as an example of something Sony can do because of the breadth of its entertainment businesses. He pointed to the company’s structure — with film, television, music and gaming divisions all under one roof — as a differentiator from many other Hollywood players.
He also connected the PlayStation relationship to Sony’s long-running position at the intersection of technology and entertainment.
“In many ways, people talk about the incursion of the tech companies into Hollywood, we were the first and I think we’ve learned a lot along the way,” Le Goy said.
He added that Sony has something many other companies would like to have: a gaming business with a high level of engagement from gamers and gaming fans. “That is what PlayStation has,” he said.
The comments underscore why Sony is treating PlayStation 5 as more than a gaming device in this new rollout. The company is betting that the same console environment where users spend long stretches playing games can also become a meaningful destination for curated entertainment channels — particularly if the viewing experience is easy to access and aligned with what that audience wants to watch.
Anime remains another Sony advantage
Le Goy also cited anime as another area where Sony believes it has what he called “an unfair advantage, a particular right to win.” He specifically pointed to Crunchyroll and Aniplex as central to that position.
“Obviously, Crunchyroll has been an incredibly successful venture for us and has really allowed us to create this kind of anime ecosystem with Aniplex and Crunchyroll where we are able to super serve fans in a way that very few other companies, in fact, really no other company could do,” Le Goy said.
Together, the PS5 live channel launch and Sony’s anime ecosystem reflect the broader argument Le Goy made at the summit: Sony’s ability to connect different parts of its entertainment portfolio is a strategic advantage. In the case of “Live TV on PS5,” that means using the PlayStation platform to bring free ad-supported video channels to an audience Sony views as unusually engaged, valuable to advertisers and historically harder for linear television to capture.
What happens next?
For now, “Live TV on PS5” is available in the U.S. with more than 100 free ad-supported video channels. The next confirmed step is international expansion, with Le Goy saying Sony intends to bring the offering to other countries in the coming months.