Sony’s PS5 console adds FAST channel portal to system

Targets gamers, who are among the most prominent cord-cutters

In a first, a gaming console will have a built-in portal to access free advertising supported streaming television (FAST) channels – and you don’t have to even download an app. 

Starting Monday (August 31), Sony’s PlayStation 5 – or PS5 for short, is introducing Live TV on PS5 for game console owners, offering the typical fare found on such services – movies, comedies, reality shows, podcasts, sports, children’s programming, creator-curated content, anime, and more. Viewers can access the services on the “media” tab on their home page, and click on the TV icon, leading you to Live TV on PS5. You will need to sign in to your Playstation account to access the channels. 

Content providers includes fare from Amazon MGM, A&E, Fox, Lionsgate, NASCAR, NBCUniversal, The NFL, and UFC, among others.

The portal has movie streaming from MovieSphere by Lionsgate, 50 Cent Action, FilmRise Free Movies, Sony One Horror Hits and Cinevault, with all also providing 24/7 streaming channels. Sony itself also has several other dedicated channels, incluidng Sony One Comedy, Get Comedy, Sony One Faves, and the TV sitcoms Bewitched and Community. 

The rest of the content is those you would commonly find on other portals, including news channels NBC News Now, ABC News Live, Fox Weather, and LiveNow from Fox; sports programming include the NFL Channel, NBC Sports Now, and UFC; and other genres including true crime, gaming, automotive, and curated creative content.

And yes, you’ll find tons of anime content on Live TV on PS5 with fourteen dedicated channels (including one devoted to Sailor Moon) with Sony’s Crunchyroll providing content for two of them.

So why launch a Live TV FAST portal on a PS5? Simple – so advertisers can target gamers, who are among the hardest people to reach in media, especially young male demos (hence, all the anime channels.)

“When you look at sort of the habits and behaviors of this community, they are gaming and engaging with video and they’re probably not showing up in other connected TV environments often,” says Peter Wood, executive vice president of consumer platforms and services at Sony Pictures Entertainment, as reported by Variety.

Sony plans to continuously update programming and add new channels, and launch the service in Canada and other international territories soon. Notable channels missing so far include CBS Sports HQ, Bloomberg TV, and Dateline, which are available just about everywhere else. 

This is not the first time Sony has had a TV service on its Playstation consoles. In 2015, Sony launched a paid Playstation Vue virtual streaming service on its PS3 and PS4 models, which like current offerings YouTube TV and Fubo, let you subscribe to numerous cable and broadcast TV channels for a lower price, targeting cord-cutters. But after Sony dropped Viacom’s channels from the service in late 2016, Playstation Vue started losing subscribers, and folded in January 2020, with Sony blaming high content and retransmission costs.  

Even though Sony is offering Live TV on PS5 starting Monday, apps for similar FAST portals were already available through their app store with Plex, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Amazon’s Prime Video, which folded its Freevee FAST channel service into the Prime Video app under the “live TV” tab (and for some reason, the now-defuct Redbox app is still available to download.)

In all, there are a little over 100 channels available in Live TV on PS5 to start. Guiding through the channel guide is difficult, using the L1 and R1 buttons on the controller, which does not make for a great browsing experience. Sound was also missing at times on some of the channels, so not exactly a great start, but should improve other time. 

Disclosure: The person who wrote this piece is a Playstation 5 owner.