Warner Bros. Discovery will launch into free television supported by advertising (or FAST)

On the call, Perrete explained the plan for the new FAST service:

“Our streaming strategy has evolved over the past year and truly reflects the importance rather than reliance on this segment of our global content monetization plans. progress we continue to make on this forward and in the spirit of optimization once our SVOD service is firmly established in the market, we see real potential and are exploring the opportunity for a FAST streaming offering or free, ad-supported platform that would give consumers who don't want to pay paid access to great library content, while serving as an entry point to our premium service. We'll talk more about our potential plans at of our Investor Day scheduled for the end of the year."

This news comes shortly after "Batgirl" was announced to be suspended from HBO Max, and a number of shows that had been confirmed for multiple seasons may no longer be safe. HBO Max seemed to be doing pretty well, and is quite popular with viewers who enjoy its wide array of content, including shows from Adult Swim, big blockbusters like "Succession" and "Barry," and an incredible wealth of movies. The FAST plan appears to be a Hail Mary, a move for costumes to recoup some of their financial losses when people drop out of the streaming service in response to these terrible decisions.

Again, FAST options have grown in popularity over the past couple of years, especially PlutoTV and Tubi. Even Netflix considered an ad-supported tier, as they find themselves in serious trouble, even though it wouldn't be free like the aforementioned FAST services. Considering HBO Max started out as a premium streaming service and Discovery+ followed in their footsteps, this is a pretty drastic change for Warner Bros. Discovery. Then again, everything they've done this week has been drastic and misinformed.

Maybe Netflix finally has some real competition to be the worst-run streaming service, but at least we'll be able to watch (some of) it for free.