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Frndly TV grows to 700,000 streaming subscribers

Frndly TV's electronic program guide makes it easy to find channels and content to watch.
Frndly TV’s electronic program guide makes it easy to find channels and content to watch. (Image via Frndly TV app, Graphic by The Desk)

Budget-friendly streaming service Frndly TV says it has grown to serve more than 700,000 subscribers.

The milestone was announced in a press release on Wednesday that touted a 40 percent year-over-year growth for the streaming service, which previously touted 500,000 subscribers in November 2021.

“This is another banner day in the growth of Frndly TV,” Bassil El-Khatib, the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Frndly TV, said in a statement. “We have focused on providing the best live TV service available at the most affordable price. We have more than tripled our channel offering, and have done so with only a single $1 price increase since our launch.”

Frndly TV bills itself as the most-affordable streaming pay TV service on the market, offering a handful of niche general entertainment channels like A&E, the History Channel, Hallmark Channel, the Weather Channel, Vice TV, Circle, Great American Family, Me TV, Story Television and Heroes & Icons, among others.

The service offers three subscription tiers: A basic plan with standard definition streaming available on a single device at a time for $7 a month, a classic plan that bumps video quality to high definition and allows for two streams at once at $9 a month, and a premium tier that unlocks four simultaneous streams for $11 a month. The classic and premium tiers also include an unlimited, cloud-based DVR that stores shows and movies for at least three months.

Related: The Desk’s full review of Frndly TV

In addition to the cloud DVR, Frndly TV offers video on-demand versions of TV shows and movies that are aired across most of its channels, which allows customers to watch programs on their schedule.

Like other budget-conscious streaming services, Frndly TV lacks a number of top tier channels: It doesn’t carry any cable news channels, nor does it carry live sports like NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL games. Frndly TV also doesn’t have some of cable’s most-sought channels like Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, AMC and Paramount Network; streamers will have to pay a little more to get those channels on Philo, which starts at $25 a month.

Still, customers appear satisfied with Frndly TV, and acknowledge it for what it is: An inexpensive way to add more than 40 live cable and specialty TV channels for access to family-friendly, classic, reality and general interest programs. It pairs well with a subscription to other streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and the countless number of free streaming TV service on the market.

“One of our philosophies in creating Frndly TV was to work hand-in-hand with our programmers in bringing consumers who were priced out of the larger linear video bundles back into the pay TV ecosystem,” Michael McKenna, a co-founder and chief programming officer at Frndly TV, said on Wednesday. “The byproduct of the limited offering is that our targeted subscribers are loyal to both Frndly TV and its programming partners. The result is higher viewing consumption of our partners’ content and lower churn for Frndly TV.”

Frndly TV offers a generous 7-day free trial so streaming TV viewers can try out the service before they commit to a subscription.

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About the Author:

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys covers the business of broadcast and streaming TV, radio broadcasting, social media, technology and telecommunications. A journalist for over 15 years, Matthew previously worked at Thomson Reuters, KGO-TV in San Francisco, KTXL in Sacramento and McNaughton Newspapers. He received 9 California Journalism Awards between 2018 and 2020, and is a member of IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors).
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