Plex, known for its media server software and a place to watch ad-supported content, will launch a store for buying and renting movies and TV shows in early February, executives said Lowpass“Janko Roetgers.
Ruetgers said “most studios” are lining up for the store’s launch and “plan to complete the catalog soon.” The store will also integrate Plex features such as movie watch lists. Roettgers noted that Plex has announced plans to launch a movie/TV store in 2020 and 2023 – hopefully Plex is really ready this time.
The new store will mark a major addition for Plex, especially after the company laid off 20% of its workforce in June 2023. At the time, the company’s chief executive told employees that Plex’s advertising business had been “severely impacted” by the global economic downturn. advertising market, but Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski told Roettgers that its advertising business is growing.
According to Roettgers, there are more changes coming to Plex in the future. Olechowski said the company is working on “pretty big user experience updates” to help support the many ad-supported movies and TV shows and FAST (free, ad-supported streaming) channels that use Plex.
Plex also plans to add more social features this year, such as public profiles – even if concerns arose late last year about its activity sharing capabilities. (Roettgers said Plex updated some of the onboarding processes for the feature, and Jason Williams, senior director of product and design at Plex, told him the backlash “dissipated very quickly after that.”)
