Time Gains As Sports Illustrated Streaming Platform Debuts

Shares Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) rose on Wednesday following the news that it is set to debut a new Sports Illustrated video streaming service on Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) .

Sports Illustrated TV will make its streaming video debut on Thursday, Nov. 16 via Amazon Prime. Time announced that the over-the-top SI network will premier with 130 hours of on-demand programming, ranging from interview-focused shows to documentaries and even a sports gambling talk show.

“Sports Illustrated TV” will be available for U.S.-based Amazon Prime members for an initial seven-day free trial. After that users must pay $4.99 per month to access the streaming service. For now, Sports Illustrated TV content will be viewable via Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, and online.

It does not appear that Time, at least for now, plans to compete with ESPN’s sports streaming service—which Disney (NYSE:DIS) plans to launch in 2018—as it will not feature any live sports. Instead, SI plans to bring magazine-style features and content to television, in a similar tone as SI’s current online video offerings.

“Because you love sports,” is the tagline for the OTT service that will feature content from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mike Tollin and Emmy winner Jonathan Hock. The magazine’s daily online talk show, “SI Now” will also be a mainstay on the platform.

Interviews and stories that were featured in the magazine about the likes of LeBron James, Conor McGregor, Ricky Williams, and other sports stars will be part of the first 130-hours of content, mainly under the new “SI: Under the Cover” umbrella.

The channel will also feature an original series section, as well as classic sports movies and documentaries, such as the Rocky series, Bad News Bears, Skiing Everest, and Michael Jordan: Come Fly With Me.

On top of that, Sports Illustrated will try to incite fans with original content, such as the pop culture-related basketball show “The Crossover.” Other original offerings will be “Planet Futbol,” hosted by SI’s prominent soccer writer, Grant Wahl, as well as a show centered around sports betting and fantasy sports.

Lastly, Sports Illustrated TV will also feature a show revolving around the magazine’s extremely popular swimsuit issue.

“Sports Illustrated TV is a new home for sports lovers who want to go beyond sports highlights and heated debates with distinctive, immersive and entertaining original programming curated through the trusted Sports Illustrated lens,” Time CEO Rich Battista said in a statement. “Sports Illustrated TV presents a broad slice of sports culture, complementing the pages of the magazine consumers have long loved.”

Time has experienced its share of struggles recently, which have forced it to cut down the number of issues it publishes. The media giant announced recently that it set to publish just 27 print issues of SI in 2018, which is down from the 38 issues that will be published in total this year.

Sports Illustratedcurrently has a print circulation of 2.8 million. The hope for Time, which has seen its stock price tumble almost 30% this year, is that a decent portion of those subscribers, as well as cord cutting sports fans, sign up for the $5 a month streaming channel.

The move comes after Time launched a streaming channel forPeople magazine, titled “People TV.” Out of the blocks, the number of Sports Illustrated TV subscribers could be subdued by the fact that it will only be available to Amazon Prime members.

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