Hello, everybody. My name is Sebastian Maniscalco. I am so excited to be joining the Discovery family, the only family bigger and more eclectic than my family. Discovery has "90 Day Fiancé". Now, my cousin Marissa, she had about 90 fiancés, so very similar. Discovery brings some of the best chefs in the world right to your home. We already had one of those in my home. She was a four-foot-two grandmother who ran a lasagna factory in our basement. Discovery has got a group of lunatics rowing to Antarctica in a canoe. Okay, we do not have that, but my crazy cousin Larry got a DUI and had to take a bike to get his tips frosted. What I am saying is, I know about families, and the Maniscalco family, just like the Discovery family, has 55,000 entertaining characters.
Now, just like my family, they made too much food, and they're all under one roof, so to speak. Now someone that I got a lot in common with, he's big in media. I'm big in comedy. He's got an accent. I got an accent, and you don't want to see either of us on "Naked and Afraid". I'm sorry. It's not even in the script. I had to say that. Now to tell you more, my close personal friend who I never met, not even on Zoom, David Zaslav.
Thank you so much, Sebastian. Great guy, great friend, and maybe the funniest guy in America, and he's just joined the Discovery family. We couldn't be more excited to have him and all the surprises that he has in store for us and for you. This is a very special day for us, a historic day for our company. We've been hard at work imagining the possibilities for our global brands, our beloved talent, and our universal genres, and all of our wonderful content to be in one fully aggregated direct-to-consumer product. Today, I could not be prouder to introduce the most distinct, clear, and unique streaming service in the world. It is with great joy that I present Discovery+. Okay, it's official. I have my Discovery+ vest on. We're going to have some real fun today, and we're going to take you through Discovery+.
Soon the world will see the results of our efforts over the last two years to bring this product to market with a global launch that harnesses the marketing power of our networks, platforms, and the reach we have across the entire world. Starting today, all of our touchpoints can push people to Discovery+, whether it's through franchise extensions, community building around our stars and genres, behind-the-scenes content, and so much more. Let's take a sneak peek at some of our launch creative.
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The power of our personalities is one of our biggest strategic advantages, and I'm thrilled that all of our global personalities will help bring Discovery+ to life and promote Discovery+ to their fans. Here's a piece of our broad campaign that will be used globally to reinforce that strength. Take a look.
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Because of our unique audiences, we could tailor marketing efforts to reach the super fans who love our networks with specific targeted marketing campaigns on our top verticals. This next spot will run on HGTV, DIY, and other platforms around the world for home and design enthusiasts. It's a great example. Take a look.
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Discovery+ will launch with more assets and more advantages than any new service. We have always believed that great IP, that we own globally in every language, great brands, great talent, and a wealth of entertainment and sport content around the world sets us apart. We will provide a service with more brands, from HGTV to Lifetime, Food Network to A&E, Discovery to History, TLC, ID, and digital brands like The Dodo and NowThis. Even the Olympics in Europe and the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the world's definitive collection of natural history, science, and environmental programming, including the BBC and Planet Earth. Outside the United States, all this is uniquely complemented by our leading portfolio of local entertainment content and brands, and in-language content.
We enter the market with more global distribution partners. Today I couldn't be more excited to announce a landmark partnership agreement with Verizon, which will offer Discovery+ to its tens of millions of U.S. subscribers. I've been talking and strategizing with Hans Vestberg and Ronan Dunne. Our leadership teams have been working together for many months. We all couldn't be more excited about this innovative and aggressive partnership. Verizon offers an unrivaled commitment, huge footprint, and a market-leading track record in driving subscribers through their expansive consumer relationships. Our creative teams are working closely together. Discovery+ will be marketed across Verizon stores, digital and social media platforms, and through promotional campaigns across TV, driving toward our joint launch, Verizon and Discovery+, on January 4th, 2021.
On the content side, for the last two years, we have been quietly and aggressively producing and acquiring a vast amount of content just for Discovery+ in every language. We've been hard at work with our favorite producers and new producers, award-winning storytellers, and our vast cast of authentic personalities, including many new ones, to create original and exclusive stories for Discovery+. These include Sir David Attenborough, Chip and Joanna Gaines, Will Packer, and Kevin Hart. Yes, my friend, Sebastian Maniscalco, just to name a few. We will launch with over 50 exclusive original series, more than any SVOD service at launch. Because of this and more, I believe that Discovery+ will be a compelling and powerful offering that's attractive to everyone in the family, all over the world, and will be a huge global success.
We couldn't be more excited about our Discovery+ launch on January 4th. The global SVOD market will never be the same.
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Today, we will share with you all the ways that we believe Discovery+ is completely differentiated from all the other streaming services. We will take you through a set of strategic advantages unique to Discovery, what we call the Discovery magic and difference. It's why we believe these strategic advantages position Discovery+ for strong consumer interest, sustained global growth, and long-term success. First, Discovery+ will be the only streaming service dedicated to quality, unscripted content driven by real-life characters, loved brands, and exceptional storytelling. Today, we're happy to announce that Discovery+ will include top franchise shows and personalities from A&E, History, and Lifetime, making Discovery+ even stronger. We see compelling white space to offer consumers everywhere a broad and unique unscripted streaming product.
We believe the service will be a perfect complement to every household streaming portfolio, and it'll be additive to the market everywhere in the world. Second, Discovery+ is the category leader across valuable, enduring, and global verticals. We hold the crown jewels of content in key genres, like lifestyle, home, food, true crime, adventure, relationships, natural history, science, the environment, and more. We have the most trusted personalities who consumers love, follow, and listen to all over the world. That is a key point of differentiation. When people choose what to watch, they can watch sports, movies, scripted series, or our kind of content. People love to spend time with characters that they love, brands that they love.
Unlike scripted and movies, our content is a great companion, where people tend to watch us all day while they're eating lunch or while they're working with their kids on homework, or when they just want to enjoy great television on the couch. Third, Discovery+ will be a global platform, and it will greatly benefit from the scale Discovery has internationally. Our difference is the powerful running start that comes from over 35 years of investing in strong global brands, reinforced with sticky in-language and local content, creating deep and established distribution relationships, building an advanced global technology infrastructure, and developing sophisticated audience and sales knowledge in every market in the world. We plan to use our massive global footprint and know-how to bring Discovery+ to more than 25 countries over the next year, and ultimately, to every consumer in the world.
Fourth, our content has broad and passionate appeal among all ages and demos: men, women, and families. Everywhere in the world, people love spending time with us. The Discovery brand portfolio is already a key companion in the home. Nearly 250 million hours of Discovery content is watched on TV every day. Our portfolio is number one for average time spent across all TV entertainment in the U.S. We also know that cord-nevers and cord-cutters really want Discovery content. Independent research shows that our networks draw the most interest among non-cable subscribers. There is no question people love and want our content. Fifth, Discovery+ offers a compelling value proposition to consumers. We will launch with the largest content library of any service to start, and Discovery+ will have one of the most expansive original slates of any streaming service, with original content premiering 52 weeks a year.
Our unique value proposition starts with the biggest and most powerful collection of real-life content in one place. We will launch with over 55,000 episodes and give consumers the definitive collection of brands, shows, and talent they love. This is the first time we will make our entire library available to global consumers. Additionally, we will be opening up our storytelling with projects from some of the top producers in the world, with the goal of building out an expansive and robust slate of original content in the genres where we have clear market leadership that are exclusive to Discovery+.
We believe this content offering is complete and compelling and will be attractive for the millions of people around the world who are not pay TV subscribers currently or who are also attracted to our global slate, a commercial-free environment, and the ability to consume our entire library on any device, anywhere, anytime. Earlier, I mentioned our fantastic Verizon partnership in the U.S. We have secured major distribution agreements with some of the largest European distributors, including Telecom Italia in Italy and Sky in the U.K. Two weeks ago, we launched Discovery+ on Sky Q. Sky called this morning to say that sign-ups for the Discovery+ app are already exceeding Sky's and our expectations. We do look forward to announcing more distribution deals in the weeks and months ahead.
Additionally, we're thrilled to announce that Discovery+ will become the streaming home of the Olympics in Europe, and the only place to watch every minute, every medal, and every hero live and on demand, providing exclusive premium content to the Discovery+ platform. This is really just the beginning. Discovery+ is coming to all of your favorite web, mobile, streaming console, and smart devices as we work for full distribution. More announcements will follow in the coming weeks. On the commercial side, we see opportunities to build out a multiple revenue stream offering. In the U.S., we will offer consumers two ways to enjoy Discovery+. One, an ad light subscription for $4.99 a month, and an ad-free option for $6.99 a month.
Our programming offers the broadest and safest marketing space on digital video products today, and we are proud to announce that launching with Discovery+ will be a slate of blue-chip advertising partners, including Lowe's, Pepsi, Toyota, Boston Beer, and Kraft, and there's more to come. To power all of these terrific partners, you will hear today from our top creative leadership about some of the exciting new content being developed exclusively for Discovery+ to join our own impressive library. Discovery+ will also have the deepest and most definitive collection of science, nature, and environmental programming in the world. Exclusive global streaming access to the BBC's natural history content and iconic Discovery series, including "Planet Earth," "The Blue Planet," and "Serengeti." This alone makes it the must-have for every family in the world.
I could not be more excited to announce that Discovery+ will launch with exclusive content from Chip and Joanna Gaines. On Discovery+, you'll get the first chance to watch "Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines," her new cooking show, and it's fantastic. The newest iteration of "Fixer Upper," their much-anticipated follow-up to the show that made America fall in love for the first time with Chip and Joanna. Chip and Jo are the most authentic and trusted voices on television today, and I couldn't be more thrilled that they're extending their Magnolia partnership to Discovery+. To talk about this exciting news and what else they're working on for Discovery+, I want to welcome my friends, Chip and Jo. Hey, guys. Great to see you.
How you doing, David?
We're here to talk about Discovery+. We're so excited that you're going to be part of it, that your content is going to be part of it, and all the exciting things that you're working on with your production company and with Magnolia. Why don't we start with you, Jo? What's been the most enjoyable part about this food show that you've been working on?
This has been such a project. A couple weeks ago, we started really shooting and getting in a rhythm, and the first day I showed up on set, I realized the thing I cherish the most is the time around the table with my family and with friends. This is why I'm doing this, and if I can help people along the way in their own journey, give them recipes, this is why I'm doing this. From that second on, I kind of feel like something clicked, and now it's literally my favorite thing to do. I keep telling the producers, "Why can't we do this every day?
I've seen the show. I've seen some of the episodes, and you're so authentic, and you bring so much to it.
Thank you.
We all started together, or you started together with "Fixer Upper," and for a long time, you weren't sure what you were going to do with "Fixer Upper." Was it going to stay away, or was it going to come back? Take us through a little bit about the thinking because we're all so excited about the fact that it's coming back.
Absolutely. Great question. I mean, that first season of "Fixer Upper" really caught its audience, and then the second season grew from there, and the third season grew from there. When we finally decided in about season five, "Hey, this is going to be our last season. This is going to be it for our journey and our experience with 'Fixer Upper,'" it was obviously bittersweet because to your point, it was really the vehicle that had introduced us to the world, and we were so thankful for that. After we gave that about a 12-month period, then Jo and I kept coming back to "Fixer Upper" and we thought, and this kind of happened again on the fly. I was doing a little promotional piece for the network, and I said exactly this.
I said, "You know us from 'Fixer Upper,' and that's where we've been, but the network is where we're headed.
One of the things that's so exciting about all the content you're going to be doing for Discovery+ is that you're curating all of it.
Absolutely. I mean, bottom line, we are as excited about our partnership, David, and it really does have a lot to do with you and that incredible company that you run at Discovery.
We hope it's going to be a hell of a brew. Joanna, just your thoughts.
We've just loved hearing your vision behind Discovery+, and the way you're going to take all the content, and how broad it's going to be able to be viewed, and the fact that we get to be a part of that, to preview some of our favorite shows over here on Discovery+. I think it just makes everything that we're doing feel even more impactful that it's going to be on this really amazing broad platform. Thank you for the way you're leading this, and we're excited to be a part.
Oh, thank you guys so much. I'll see you in Waco, hopefully soon.
Bye, David.
Good to see you, David.
In addition to all the great content from Chip and Jo, you'll also hear today about some of our exclusive content in the categories where we think Discovery+ is particularly well-positioned to attract consumer interest from a streaming audience. Yes, we are entering a streaming market with a number of established players and new entrants, but they're playing in a different space. Almost all of them are led by the same consumer proposition, scripted movies and scripted series. We are different. We are convinced that Discovery+ will stand out, and one of the key reasons is our partnerships with some of our industry's most dynamic producers, creators, and stars, like our next guests, Will Packer and Kevin Hart, who will bring an exclusive original series titled "Route 66" to Discovery+.
It's going to be a lot of fun, and Will is one of the great long-term partners to Discovery. Will, you did "Girls Trip." Now you're going to do "Route 66." It's really boys trip.
Yeah, I had a lot of fun with "Girls Trip." Now, guys trip. That's how I'm looking at this. This is my guys trip version led by Kevin Hart. Everybody would want to be in that car, right? It's going to be fun because, of course, Kevin brings that lightness, that irreverence, that fun, that great energy, but it's going to have a lot of heart, too, Dave, because this is a country that has been through something. The way you heal is by laughter.
For me, I think Will just hit the nail on the head, man. The fun is the easy part. The personality, the reasons to laugh, that's the easy side. I think the heart and the humanity that he just mentioned that can be attached to this thing is what's going to be so special because I can't say it enough, you're getting a point of view into the real world of today. I don't think there's a better idea that I've been a part of that can be more impactful than what this is now, and I think you're going to have a real POV. I also want to go into my community, and I want to touch the ground.
I want the world to see what my people are going through as well, and what they've experienced, and how now they're overcoming such dark times with what they would love. I would love to mix some of those main streets up with some Martin Luther King Boulevards. I want you to get both perspectives.
There you go. One of the things that people are going to tune into the show to see is what is it like to talk to people who are in different facets, pockets, demographics of this country, right. They all come together and talk and have a conversation about what it's like during this time. DZ, the other thing that I want to make clear is when was the last time Kevin drove down Route 66? He hasn't. I'm just going to tell you. He's been all over his private jets. He asked me could we do a private jet, and I said the show would not be the same. I had to talk him into getting in the car. We're going to put Kevin Hart in a car driving down the freeway. He hadn't done that in, like, 25 years.
I just want to let that be known.
What kind of car are we going to put him in, Will? Is he going to get?
Oh, man.
decide the car, or do you decide the car?
No, no. I'm going to decide the car. I can't let him decide the car. Trust me. I got it.
I don't want anything crazy.
I'm going to surprise him. DZ, I got it. This is what happens behind the scenes. We'll figure it out. I got it.
Will, just maybe your thought about Discovery+.
The thing I like about Discovery+ is that it's got such a wide range of offerings that my family can watch in the home, right. Talk about co-viewing, which is something we don't do enough of anymore. You have got offerings across this thing that my whole family can enjoy because it's exciting for me as a content producer to be able to have so many different mediums that I can put my content in. When you talk about exclusive, unscripted content, nobody does it better, period. Nobody's doing exclusive, unscripted content better, and now it's going to be all in one place. I can't wait to tap into that global audience as a producer and also as a consumer.
All right. Well, we can't wait to see the car, and we can't wait to head down Route 66 with you, Kevin. We're super excited. Thanks so much for coming today, and we'll see you on Discovery+.
Hey, man. Thank you. I'm excited about the opportunity. Congratulations on all you're doing, look, this is the start of a beautiful relationship, man. The bad news is that you're stuck with me now.
Okay, great. Thanks so much, guys.
Thank you, DZ. Congratulations, brother.
Okay. Bye, Will.
Good job, guys.
You're the best.
Take care.
Thank you.
Now we have JB Perrette joining us from London in the Cube.
Thanks, David. It's really exciting to say hello to everyone from London. I hope you're staying safe and doing well wherever you are streaming us from around the world. This really cool location is what we affectionately call the Cube, our innovative virtual and augmented reality studio where we host many of our live sporting events. David's right. One of the most important strategic advantages Discovery has is that we are fully global while also being local, and we own and control all our rights on all platforms, so no costly buyouts or restrictions. Over 30+ years around the world, we've developed an industry-leading team, unparalleled infrastructure, high-quality brands and content, and one of the biggest global consumer reaches in media. Discovery pioneered what it means to be a truly global media company. People across the planet love our channels, programming, and personalities.
Our footprint extends to over 200 countries and territories. We're distributed in more than 50 languages, and we reach more than 800 million global viewers every month. With 80% awareness, Discovery is at the very top, right alongside Disney, as one of the world's most recognizable and admired media brands. Discovery drives inspiration, aspiration, and loyalty like few other brands. In the old days, when we used to travel, immigration officers would ask me where I worked. I'd tell them, and without fail, they all responded with, "I love Discovery." From Berlin to Bombay, Rio to Rome, Dublin to Dubai, and all points in between, the reaction was the same. As part of our development work to launch Discovery+, we conducted a large survey across 25 countries.
Some of the most important feedback we heard loud and clear is that having a passion in life gives most people a sense of purpose. Makes folks more resilient and ultimately happier. This insight plays right into our sweet spot, what consumers want and love about us. Nearly 85% of people surveyed have a passion for one or more of our key portfolio genres, from home to food to turbo or adventure. Especially in these challenging times, people are gravitating to content that is comforting, centered around the areas they love most, and that gives them and their families joy. That's in part why our international audiences are at all-time record highs in 2020. We've also learned over the last three decades that in order to scale and not just skim, it requires going deep with local faces and local stories. That is a key pillar of the Discovery difference.
You may be more familiar with the powerful U.S.-led brand portfolio and content we have, but outside the U.S., we add to the mix a supercharged set of popular local brands, strong original content, established sales and distribution network, and more overall reach and consumer affinity. That global and local secret sauce will help power the launch of Discovery+ in more than 25 markets over the next year. With the growing adoption of streaming, local content is finding audiences across borders more than ever before. We will be in pole position to introduce global audiences to new favorites from across the world. Foodies will get a taste of everything from pasta makers to baklava bakers. Adventurers can accompany Himalayan trekkers or search for gold in the Australian outback.
True crime fans can be tantalized with stories from the home of Nordic noir, and everyone can say yes to the dress from Chile to China. No streaming service will bring the full world of real-life entertainment to you like Discovery+. Over time, in Europe, Discovery+ will also include Eurosport, our world-class portfolio of sports content from Grand Slam Tennis, Grand Tour Cycling, premium football, or soccer for some, basketball, and motorsport. Our sports content will make the Discovery+ offering even more compelling. Of course, as David mentioned, the biggest global event, the Olympics. Discovery+ will become the streaming home of the Olympic Games, beginning in a number of European markets next summer for the Tokyo Games, and in even more markets just six months later for Beijing 2022, and then across the whole continent when the games return to Europe for Paris 2024.
Prior to Discovery+ rolling out in the market, every minute of the Olympic Games will, of course, remain available on Eurosport Player. We're thrilled to combine the power of sports, which in many ways is the ultimate real-life entertainment, with the breadth of our Discovery+ portfolio. We've seen this combination of sports and entertainment work well over the last 12 months in our Nordic markets, and we're excited to roll it out across more countries. Let's take a look at the Discovery+ difference around the world.
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Now, to talk more specifically about our go-to-market approach for Discovery+. As we build out our global subscriber and advertiser base, there are four key elements I want to address. First, on consumer packages. In the U.S., Discovery+ will be available with light ads or with no ads. Internationally, our experience in the last 30 years has taught us that to maximize scale and economics, it's best not to take a one-size-fits-all approach. In markets outside the U.S., Discovery+ consumer packages will vary by market. Only an ad-free subscription in some, both ad light and ad-free subscription options in others, and in a few markets, particularly where we have free-to-air networks, a small ad-supported free tier.
As you may know, we have an existing streaming service called Dplay in a few markets, largely in Europe. We will harmonize the Discovery+ brand across those markets by early 2021, and we will also gradually transition those services to a more fully synchronized product look and feel and feature set as the U.S. Second, pricing. As David mentioned, the U.S. service will be available for $4.99 with light ads and $6.99 with no ads. We expect average consumer prices to Discovery+ to be in that range and will adapt to local market dynamics as we launch in Latin America and Asia. Markets with a sports offering will have additional pricing and packaging options. Third, distribution. This has always been a key differentiator for Discovery, and we believe our deep relationships with key mobile, pay TV, and broadband distributors will help us scale Discovery+ efficiently.
I'm particularly pleased that just in the last six months, we've laid the foundation for Discovery+'s international rollout by successfully expanding our partnerships with some of our biggest and most important international distributors in many key growth markets. As David emphasized, and you'll hear from Gunnar a little later, we have methodically secured strong long-term value for our core TV portfolio while also partnering on our direct-to-consumer future, striking this balance between preserving and extending economics of our traditional business and growing our next-generation business. A great example of this is with our long-standing partner, Sky, in the U.K. Sky will continue to carry our powerful portfolio of networks while becoming our international launch partner for Discovery+. It seems particularly fitting that Discovery+ is making its international debut with Sky.
Just over 30 years ago, Sky was also the first international pay TV distributor for the Discovery Channel, which kicked off an era of incredible growth for both companies. Fourth, marketing. In choosing Discovery+ as the brand for our streaming service, we are excited to harness and further build on one of the most admired brands in the world, expanding on our original mission and igniting and satisfying curiosity across the entirety of our passion portfolio. From food, home, relationships, true crime, animals, automotive, and of course, our trusted legacy of adventure and survival, natural history, science, and space. As David said, we will embark on the largest marketing campaign in the history of the company, leveraging all our own platforms and assets across the globe.
To recap, we have a strong, differentiated proposition, unparalleled global brand awareness and affinity, over 800 million monthly viewers and fans, the unique and powerful combination of U.S.-led stories that have universal appeal and great local characters and content, as well as sports across Europe, and partnerships with leading distributors to help us scale. That is the powerful fuel that makes us incredibly excited and confident about the potential for Discovery+ around the world. Now, I'd like to send it over to Karen Leever, our president of digital products and marketing in the U.S., to tell you about some of the key features of this great new product.
Thanks, JB. I am so thrilled to be introducing Discovery+ today. At Discovery, we have always been hyper-focused on the consumer, and now with Discovery+, we're taking that commitment to a whole new level. We're bringing that deep and unique relationship that viewers have with our brands, stories, and personalities and enhancing that connection even further. Discovery+ will make it easy to browse all of our networks, along with the largest offering of real-life entertainment anywhere. Any path you take, you'll find the perfect show to watch in just seconds. As you start your experience, the For You section will always feature shows that are most relevant to you. That's because the more you watch and engage with Discovery+, the more personalized your experience will become. It's here you'll find top picks curated by all of our experts.
Discovery has always owned passion genres, and our navigation is designed to reflect that. We've made it easy to quickly browse the top genres that you care about the most. As you choose a genre and scroll, you can quickly see the abundance of choices that Discovery+ has to offer, like new Discovery+ originals, like "Mysterious Planet" or "Planet Earth" from BBC's natural history collection, and long-time fan favorites like "Deadliest Catch". We've also created a simple and easy way to explore all of our beloved brands with customized hubs. Just tap on any brand logo and you'll land on a curated brand hub that features the best series, shows, and episodes. Our browse experience is one of the most powerful features of Discovery+. You can jump into any of our brands and quickly find what you love to watch.
It allows you to go super deep into all of our content and instantly filter by new, trending, timely, and relevant topics. Now, an excellent user experience isn't all that Discovery+ offers. It also offers an unparalleled data-driven advertising experience. We're able to offer advertisers unrivaled measurement, targeting, and transparency. With a lower ad load, we'll be able to serve more personalized ads that are not only endemic to the programming that they appear in, but that are more relevant to our subscribers. Thanks to our proprietary One Graph technology, we can connect Discovery+ advertisers with our extremely coveted and valuable audiences across all platforms, dramatically increasing both scale and reach.
As David mentioned earlier, we're thrilled to announce our inaugural ad partners this morning and look forward to welcoming more partners in the coming months. Next, we'll hear from our lifestyle brand and content team on all of our innovative, exciting, and new programming coming to you on Discovery+. First, let's give a look at how nobody does real-life content like Discovery.
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As you can see, from world-renowned chefs and real estate and home renovation experts to relatable doctors and true crime detectives, the leading lifestyle talent choose to make Discovery their home. While some may try to imitate, there is only one HGTV, only one Food Network, only one TLC, and only one ID. We have the standout brands that lead head and shoulders above the others in these genres. Starting early next year, we're giving fans more of what they love in lifestyle on Discovery+. How audiences watch in the world of streaming has changed, but what they watch hasn't. Here's what we know. Every month, over half of all women TV viewers watch Discovery's networks, more than any other pay TV portfolio. We have the top four non-news networks on cable and the number one network for women in prime.
What we also know is that in a world of increasing and sometimes overwhelming choices, brands matter more than ever. We have the go-to brands for women, and we can stretch these brands and delight fans like never before on Discovery+. As David said, we'll do that by nourishing them with series they already love, expanded content, and all-new exclusive originals. More on our amazing originals coming up. For decades, we have been super serving fans, and they have formed a special bond with our talent. During the pandemic, that connection only got stronger. We have been the comfort food as people are home, cooking three meals a day, tackling that languishing DIY project, or just escaping with our love and relationship and true crime series.
Nothing says comfort food more than two of the biggest stars and most renowned culinary personalities in Food Network history, Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis. Fans love their longtime friendship as much as their incredible cuisines. We're extremely proud to call Bobby and Giada part of the family, and now part of Discovery+. Please welcome Bobby and Giada.
Hi, Kathleen.
It's so great to see you guys. We are so incredibly excited about your new Discovery+ original, "Bobby and Giada in Italy." It's one of the most beautiful shows we have ever seen. I know it was a huge labor of love. Bobby, how did this come to be?
Well, it sort of happened naturally. Giada and I have been friends for a long time, besides being colleagues on the Food Network, and I have a immense love and passion for Italy, and Giada is a native Roman. It just seemed like it was time to go explore Italy together. If you go to a place you really want to learn, you grab a local, so luckily I had access to Giada.
Giada, who was in charge on this trip? Were you leading Bobby, or was he leading you? This is your home turf.
That's a really great question, Kathleen. No, just kidding. I think it was 50/50. The part that Bobby left out is that he spent six weeks there prior to shooting this. I think I showed him the things that I love, and he showed me the things that he loves, and I think it's a really nice blend of two different perspectives.
Bobby, this is new for you. You've fallen in love with Italy. What was your most favorite thing to do on this trip that viewers are going to be surprised by?
Giada and I really wanted to focus in on a couple of different versions of Italy. One of them was Rome, the sort of urban version of Italy. In Rome, Giada and I did a lot of eating, like we went to different restaurants, we went to different shops that Giada led us to, and then some of the places that I had sort of discovered and wanted to discover. When we got to Tuscany, we put our aprons on and we cooked there. Being able to cook in the kitchen with Giada, with all the incredible ingredients from Tuscany, those were some of my favorite moments.
How does it feel to be now part of this next journey as we all launch into Discovery+ and to see the food genre change?
I think it has changed so much from when I started, which is a long time ago. I also think that food is something that connects us the way music connects a lot of people. I think with Discovery+ it's only going to get better because it opens it up to a whole new audience that just don't prescribe to cable. Getting an app like Discovery and being able to see all of these great programs they haven't been able to have access to is going to be phenomenal. The ability for all of us on Food Network to maybe explore new things and do different types of shows that maybe all relate back to food, but maybe we weren't able to do before on Food Network. I'm super excited.
Yes, this new show that you've both done for Discovery+ is not the kind of thing that people would typically see on Food Network. Bobby, what does that make you think about the future and all the new things that we're going to be able to do with the food genre?
I'm really excited about Discovery+. "Bobby and Giada in Italy" was a passion project for both of us, and we've only been to Tuscany and Rome. You know what that means? There's a lot more Italy to discover.
Why stop at Italy? We're a global company. You could just take this show all over the world. Pack your bags.
Yeah.
I like that too, but I'm going to stick with Italy for now. Lots to discover.
We are so excited about Bobby and Giada in Italy. It's such a beautiful show. It's just the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, and we're so excited that it's going to be one of our special launches on Discovery+. Thank you so much for being here, and we'll see you in Italy.
All right.
Yes. Perfect.
Arrivederci.
Thanks, Kathleen.
Discovery is the best in the business at creating buzzy, real-life shows that fans love, and there's no better evidence than the runaway success of the biggest, noisiest, unscripted franchise in all of television, TLC's "90 Day Fiancé". It's the number one series in all of TV for women, and "90 Day" helped TLC rocket to number one in cable among all women demos. Across platforms, "90 Day" devotees have consumed a staggering 67 billion minutes of the franchise year to date. This is not just a U.S. story. This is the mother of all unscripted series globally, with "90 Day" and its spin-offs captivating audiences in nearly 170 countries and in 40 languages. Viewers can't get enough, and as David announced, we're giving them the "90 Day" universe on Discovery+.
At launch, Discovery+ will be the home of an all-new "90 Day Fiancé" series, along with multiple other new and returning titles from the franchise. That passionate fandom surrounding all things "90 Day" is why we know it will be hugely popular at Discovery+. With Discovery+, we want female audiences, all audiences, to stream what they love, and they love our brands and talent. Discovery brings the winning recipe, the deepest library of fan favorites and spin-offs, and all-new originals as only the leader in lifestyle programming can, all in one spot.
[presentation]
Hi, everyone. You just saw the power and beauty of our exclusive BBC content. Combined with our heritage brands like Science, Animal Planet, and of course, Discovery, we know that Discovery+ will have the definitive collection of natural history programming. It's blue-chip content for the whole family and an essential part of your streaming portfolio at a time when there has never been more interest in our planet. We excel at bringing these stories to life, and of course, it helps to have brilliant and iconic partners, and that's what we have in Sir David Attenborough. He has dedicated his life to highlighting the beauty, awe, wonder, and ultimately, the fragility of our planet. We're currently working on two new series with Sir David.
"The Mating Game", produced in partnership with the BBC and the team who brought you "Planet Earth", is an epic exploration of the lust for life and rules of attraction in the animal kingdom. He's here today to tell us about his latest BBC landmark series, which will be available on Discovery+ at launch, "A Perfect Planet".
Hello. My name is David Attenborough, and I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to tell you about my newest landmark series called "A Perfect Planet". The Earth, our home, is one in a billion. It's the only planet, as far as we know, where there is life. That is only possible because of a unique balance of natural forces, of volcanoes, sunlight, weather, and the ocean currents, which create the perfect conditions for life. It's a fragile balance, and now it's threatened as never before. It is time to act. My hope is that we can inform, fascinate, and inspire action when "A Perfect Planet" streams to a global audience on Discovery+ next year. Thank you.
While our nature programming speaks to the whole family, and our lifestyle content that Kathleen talked about is a huge hit with women, we also create series that showcase adventure, exploration, and curiosity better than anyone else, which attracts a strong and loyal male audience. Today, we'll talk with Discovery's ultimate everyman, Mike Rowe. He's equally comfortable on the deck of a crab boat, cleaning a sewer, or on the stage of the Baltimore Opera, all places he's worked, by the way. His range and versatility and gift for storytelling is exactly why we're working with him on a new series for Discovery+. This new platform provides fertile ground to dig even deeper with our biggest stars, like Mike, offering more creative freedom to take on big ideas and new formats that can augment our broad fan base.
In our new original series, "Six Degrees with Mike Rowe," he searches for answers to prove that everything in our crazy and uncertain world is connected. It is my honor to welcome Mike Rowe. Mike, hi. Thank you so much for being here today.
Great to see you again.
Mike, we are so excited to have you here today, but have you and your new show, "Six Degrees with Mike Rowe" on Discovery+, an exclusive original. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the show?
At base, "Six Degrees" is a show about history for people who normally wouldn't watch a history show. It is an interdisciplinary look at how any two objects, no matter how seemingly disparate, can be connected by time and space and the events of history. We look, for instance, at how a horseshoe can help you find your soulmate, at how a sheep can help you do your taxes, at how a garbage man gave us a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the Big Bang moments after it occurred. It's kind of like the old parlor game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, except Kevin Bacon's not in the show. I am. We're using all the tools at our disposal to travel through time and put together something interesting, including what it takes to make a show like this today for Discovery.
Well, I have to say, some of those connections seem like a bit of a stretch, but you skillfully do make all the connections through the six degrees. It's a really fun yarn to watch all of these episodes. What do you think about when you hear about everything that Discovery has to offer across our entire portfolio, all in one streaming platform?
Well, look, I think it's ambitious, and I'm not surprised that you're doing it. It simply means I can watch the best documentaries in the world whenever I feel like it, or I can watch myself in reruns of "Dirty Jobs" whenever I feel like it. It's new and it's exciting, but honestly for me, I know that it's still the same basic challenge, this idea of satisfying curiosity. Whether you're doing it on cable or whether you're doing it on a service like this, that's still the thing that's for sale. I understand that. That's why I'm still excited to be working with you guys, and I think your fans are going to absolutely love it.
Well, thank you, Mike, and it means the world that you're here with us today, and it also means the world that you're bringing us your newest show to be a part of Discovery+'s launch.
Well, the future is upon us, Nancy, and I couldn't be happier to be here with you as well. It's going to be great.
Thanks, Mike. From a true original to Discovery+'s original series, allow me to introduce our Group Senior Vice President of Content and Commercial Strategy for Discovery+, Lisa Holme.
Hi, everyone. Discovery is the global leader in real-life entertainment. We commission more unscripted programming than anyone else, twice as many hours as the next closest competitor. That leadership will continue on Discovery+ as we plan to premiere several dozen originals in the first quarter alone. We are thrilled to work with world-class chef Carla Hall on a new series that traces the origins of food through time and place. Carla will invite you on a journey to discover the ways different cultures have influenced what you eat. Her unique sense of humor and easy charm will really elevate this show. Additionally, Food Network star Duff Goldman is partnering with The Jim Henson Company to create a baking series populated with puppets and unbelievable recipes. This will be a must-watch for any family that loves to cook. We're also welcoming some big new names to the Discovery Cooking family.
Ludacris is both a legendary rapper and a successful restaurateur, but his skills in the kitchen do not match his skills in the studio. We'll watch as he gets schooled in cooking. We are working with superstar comedian Sebastian Maniscalco on a series that will examine the social etiquette of eating, hosting, and attending meals. It is equal parts comedy series and sociology experiment. You know what? Sebastian can explain it even better than I can.
These days, there's a lot of streaming services, but there's only one that guarantees that you don't have to look at another superhero, Discovery+. Discovery+ doesn't have any guys with tights with magic powers. There's no shows about lawyers or werewolves or trolls on a quest. Discovery+ knows that real life is way more fun than fantasy. The thing that helps you escape your life is watching somebody else's life. When I watch real-life entertainment, my situation seems a lot better. Sure, I haven't been able to go to the store in seven months, but at least I don't have a Civil War ghost slamming doors all night. Not only that, you also get my new show, Well Done with Sebastian Maniscalco. It's a food show, a travel show, a family drama, so it's perfect for Discovery+, where everything comes together in one place.
In the relationship category, we have TV's biggest unscripted hit with "90 Day Fiancé". We are really excited to bring that franchise to Discovery+. A new series called "90-Day Journeys" puts the power in the hands of the viewer in a way that can only be done on a streaming platform. Viewers will have the control to watch their fan favorite 90-day couples start to finish. For the first time, fans can watch just their favorite couples' journeys. If you're new to "90 Day," this gives you the perfect entry point into the "90 Day" universe. As Kathleen mentioned, we'll have other new "90 Day" franchises coming to the service. Discovery+ is also the definitive streaming destination for natural history. We will debut "Mysterious Planet," a comedic take on the epic nature series narrated by David Schwimmer, who is not a paleontologist, but did play one on TV.
Unique to Discovery+, we will also mix and match genres that our fans love. A great example of this is "Pushing the Line," which follows freestyle slackliners who walk above a 900-foot gorge on a two-inch wide piece of rope. It has beauty. They provide a rarely seen view on some of the world's most stunning scenery. It has competition, and it has drama as we peek into the romantic entanglements back in base camp. My kind of show. As David mentioned, Discovery+ is the best home for real-world entertainment, featuring top shows from A&E, History, and Lifetime, including "Pawn Stars," "Ice Road Truckers," "American Pickers," "The First 48," "Dance Moms," and many more. Another Discovery strength is our leadership in true crime, one of the most popular streaming genres. The beloved detective, Joe Kenda, from our ID network will bring a brand-new series to Discovery+ called "American Detective".
These original projects and many others will live alongside our growing library of prestige documentaries on Discovery+. We are excited to have a platform to work with established and emerging filmmakers on impactful stories, including the new documentary, "P.S. Burn This Letter Please". It uses secret unearthed letters to paint a portrait of New York's underground drag scene from the 1950s. We are in production on a series I can't wait to share with you all, "Queen of Meth," a truly unbelievable true crime story of how comedian and actor Tom Arnold's sister, Lori, controlled the country's meth boom from a rundown cabin in Iowa. It's the docuseries that will have everyone talking. All of this is just the beginning. We'll have much more news to share on Discovery+ in the months ahead. Here's an exclusive look at some of the great Discovery+ content on the horizon.
[Presentation]
Good afternoon, and thank you again for taking the time to be here with us today. Before I provide some financial details and take you through the opportunity ahead of us, I would like to briefly offer a couple of highlights. As you know, we closed the Scripps transaction about two and a half years ago, and the integration and execution has brought increased scale as well as market share growth globally, the culmination of which has better positioned us to address the direct-to-consumer pivot we continue to execute upon. Financially, we generated $3 billion of free cash flow in both 2019 and on a trailing 12-month basis this year through the end of Q3, reflective of our unique and efficient operating model and providing us with a supportive financial framework to invest for further growth.
We have gone from strength to strength, stronger operationally, financially, and competitively as we lean into our biggest direct-to-consumer pivot yet with the launch of our global Discovery+ service. We believe the product represents incredible value for our consumers, an unprecedented amount of high-quality franchise programming supported by a deep library, alongside a great roster of exclusives that will add even greater depth to our iconic personalities and resonant content verticals. We believe it will appeal to not only the growing broadband-only universe, which we currently do not reach, but also to many current subscribers to our linear channels that desire an even deeper level of engagement with these beloved brands and personalities, or simply an ad-free viewing experience.
We have approached the direct-to-consumer model in a variety of ways over the last five years or so with vertical and niche lifestyle and sports products, as well as regional aggregated content offerings. No doubt, we have learned a lot. We have built a global scalable technology stack to better serve our customers and better informed ourselves on how to most effectively interact with and serve our fans, helping to sharpen our approach to content windowing, performance marketing, and churn reduction. Our portfolio of next-generation products currently serves roughly 5 million paying subscribers, more than double the number at this point last year. This growth provides us with solid footing and good momentum as we turn our attention to this global initiative.
In the U.S., from a high-level perspective, we believe the serviceable addressable market for our product is at least 70 million homes. This takes into account several filters, such as propensity to consume a meaningful amount of content every day, subscribe to SVOD, and interest in our content verticals, genres, and brands. Given trends in the industry, we would expect this market size to grow even larger over time. We have long believed that a lead partner is important to help drive scale and engagement, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be partnering with Verizon.
We intend to leverage their national reach and substantial wireless base. Qualifying wireless subscribers will receive a Discovery+ subscription included with their plan, helping us to reduce the execution risk associated with the launch of this magnitude. We are also acutely aware of the importance of our linear distribution, and we will nourish both platforms.
Despite the obvious secular headwinds, we have never been more confident in our position on traditional linear platforms as our core business is stronger than ever with respect to both advertising as well as distribution. On the advertising side, our strong endemic brands and uninterrupted slate of fresh content at a time when competitors have turned to repeats, has positioned us solidly behind increasingly stronger advertiser demand for our verticals. We have enjoyed outstanding growth in CPMs and share of wallet over these past few years. Scatter premiums of 30% on top of already strong upfront pricing have allowed us to continue to outpace the industry, and with news potentially coming off an unusual boom, we are increasingly encouraged with our prospects for strong delivery and share growth. We feel as well-positioned as ever.
On the distribution side, our recent renewals have reinforced our confidence in the outstanding value our portfolio of brands brings to our affiliate partners, driving roughly 20% of ad-supported cable viewership, and more than that in the female demographic. Our family of networks is undoubtedly a core element of the traditional bundle together with news and sports. Our channels represent superb value to our partners as the share of viewing we generate is well above the relative share of our affiliates' programming costs. On the local avails alone, we believe a healthy portion of the affiliate fee paid to us is recouped. Indeed, we believe we are a very strong partner. As such, we will continue to support and strengthen our position in the linear channels, ever mindful of the value we bring to our partners and they to us.
While an aggregated SVOD service is new to us in the U.S., the story is quite different in many international regions, as a majority of our roughly 5 million global subscribers are captured in our international segment. As JB noted, we value our distribution partners, having recently renewed hybrid deals with companies such as Sky and others for both traditional linear carriage and OTT distribution, providing us with a balanced approach to addressing this evolving ecosystem. Our international Discovery+ approach will initially focus on key European markets, the four Nordic markets, the U.K., Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands, and include a total of 25 markets in the first wave. Across international, we have applied the same filters as I described earlier for the U.S., and we estimate the serviceable addressable market to be over 400 million households.
While our modeling was largely focused on households, we see major customer acquisition opportunities in mobile with partners such as Verizon and Telecom Italia, particularly internationally. There, Discovery+ can tap into the vast majority of consumers who don't subscribe to broader, more expensive pay-TV packages, creating a large new customer segment for us. Turning now to some financial building blocks. Most importantly, while this effort will require funding to support the launch and subsequent subscriber growth, we expect D2C will enhance our revenue growth as we are confident that the subscribers we will gain are largely incremental to our top-line trajectory. Additionally, we believe that our direct-to-consumer offerings should generate higher revenue than our traditional linear business on a per-subscriber basis over time. As we know, direct-to-consumer operating models are inherently lower margin than linear.
That being said, we believe that our content model and our global reach over which we'll be able to amortize content spend will be very beneficial to the number of subs required to break even relative to our peers. The same competitive advantage that has driven our superior financial profile in the traditional media ecosystem for years. We ultimately project Discovery+ to achieve margins of roughly 20% long term and at scale, which we may hit earlier in the U.S. and other mature international markets and later in less mature markets internationally. With respect to expenses, the three key buckets of OpEx have been and will continue to be content, technology, and marketing. The first two largely fixed and marketing primarily variable.
On the content side, as you heard from Lisa, we will invest in a healthy pipeline of additional programming that will be exclusive to the platform or that is windowed in some markets prior to linear. We will fully mine our deep library across the service. We are committed to applying our efficient model of global and cross-platform content exploitation as we expand into the D2C part of our ecosystem. Our total content spend, the lifeblood of our company, will increase accordingly, leveraged across both platforms. Regarding technology spend, as you know, we have already been investing in our platform for the past couple of years, and we will continue to allocate resources as required toward things like new features or geographical expansion. As expected, technology spend relative to revenue should ultimately decline post-launch as we begin to scale.
Marketing spend is the big variable that will drive much of the Adjusted OIBDA investment or startup losses for the next couple of years. The fixed portion of marketing spend will be more significant during the yearly promotion of the initial launch and should step down over time. Specifically, in conjunction with a Verizon partnership in the U.S., as you would expect, we anticipate aggressively investing in subscriber acquisitions to optimize the unique opportunity presented by the partnership early on. On the other hand, our subscriber acquisition spend through performance marketing is variable and is expected to ramp up relative to success, and we will spend against increasingly measurable customer lifetime value. Turning to financials. Today, we expect our next-generation initiatives to drive over $800 million of revenue this year, up mid-teens over 2019 despite the challenging environment.
We expect AOIBDA losses from investment initiatives to be in the $500 million range. We won't get into much detail on 2021 just yet. However, a few guideposts to consider. Some of the planned investments from 2020 was shifted into 2021 due to COVID, as did the associated revenue. We expect AOIBDA losses for our investment initiatives to peak in 2021 at a level a couple hundred million dollars above 2020, though as always, this will largely depend on the cadence and success of Discovery+ subscriber growth and accompanying variable subscriber acquisition spend. We will provide more detail on these financial metrics during our investor call at 1:30 PM. We intend to update The Street on our traction with global paying subscribers and next-generation revenue on a regular basis starting next year, though we are not intending to change our reporting segment structure.
With that, I'd like to close by reiterating how excited we are to be bringing Discovery+ to our fans around the globe. We have clear advantages with respect to our category leadership and content genres, and I am confident that our differentiation from a content as well as a financial perspective will be key factors driving our ultimate success. Thank you again for joining us. The link to the Q&A session with David, JB, and me is available on both the Discovery corporate and investor relations websites. Now to help us bring it all home, one of our favorite guys, Guy Fieri.
They saved the hype man for last. Except really, this isn't any hype. This is real. You just heard all about Discovery+. It's incredible, right? I mean, totally out of bounds. Discovery+ is the real deal. In fact, I'm so stoked about it, I'm going to rename one of my shows to DD D+ . You heard it here first. You got to love it. Discovery+ is so awesome, and I don't know why they didn't give it more pluses. It should be called Discovery Plus, plus, plus to the 10th power plus. How many pluses is that? A lot. It's all about flavors and the best ingredients, tasty new originals, and all your faves piled high. It's going to really bring the heat. Nothing like it in the marketplace, folks. No other streaming service can even come close to the amount of amazing, ass-kicking, bingeable, real-life programming.
Whatever people are into, Discovery+ has it. People can't get enough of it, and they can't get it anywhere else. That's why as other media companies may be slowing, Discovery is growing. It's been two years since we all stood together on one stage to introduce the future of Discovery, and we are all here together again, even virtually. We're a pretty awesome group. We are all going to a new home. Thanks for watching, and we're all incredibly excited to bring you Discovery+.