Netflix is flexing its streaming muscle and taking it to a new platform. This week, they announced a partnership with SiriusXM satellite radio to develop a comedy channel that will launch before January 2019. Making it the first time the streaming giant has moved any of its content to a different distribution platform.
The channel will be called Netflix Is A Joke which is based on their social handles of the same name that house their comedy offerings and were rolled out a few months back when Jerry Seinfeld premiered a new special on the platform. This partnership will handle Netflix's already large, and rapidly growing library of original comedy content, which can simultaneously drive new subscriptions and while promoting new material from comedy legends like Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock.
This deal adds to the content/platform arms race as Netflix needs to make moves against its competitors like Hulu, Amazon, Disney, etc. who've partnered with each other in order to compete with Netflix. With comedy being one of its largest content buckets Netflix has, how well it can translate onto an audio platform make it a natural fit to being content syndication in this manner.
Netflix’s SiriusXM channel will also be commercial free, “We believe our promotional partnership with SiriusXM will extend choice for listeners to sample and enjoy commercial-free content off of our service,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos.
This will be the 7th channel SiriusXM has dedicated to comedy that serve its 33 million subscribers.