JustWatch turns guide into streaming service with October launch

JustWatch, the app millions use to find where a film or series is streaming, is becoming a streaming service itself.

The JustWatch Group will launch JustWatch TV in October, available directly inside its existing app and website, according to Deadline. No extra download needed.

The new service will combine free streaming with adverts and pay-per-title rentals and purchases, with no subscription required. Ad-supported streaming, often called AVOD, is free to watch in exchange for commercial breaks. Transactional streaming, known as TVOD, lets viewers rent or buy single titles one at a time.

JustWatch TV will launch in 12 countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. Viewers there will find films and TV programmes supplied by names including Paramount, New Regency, Fremantle, Bleecker Street and Vortex Media.

Those launch titles will initially be non-exclusive. In plain terms, JustWatch will not be the only place to watch them, and the same films and shows can also appear on other platforms.

The company unveiled the plan at the Toronto Film Festival's new market, where buyers and sellers meet to strike distribution deals. JustWatch was founded in 2014 as a search and discovery guide. It now reports 50 million monthly users, according to Deadline.

Its core product tells people where to watch more than 500,000 films and TV shows across more than 1,500 streaming services worldwide. Instead of always sending users elsewhere, JustWatch TV will let some of that search end in a play button at home. A viewer could look up a title and watch it there and then, either free with ads or as a rental.

For viewers, this means one less jump between apps. For rights holders, it offers another shelf for films that are already circulating.

What makes this stand out is placement. JustWatch already sits at the moment of decision, when someone has picked a title and wants to know where it lives. Adding its own screen gives that moment a new answer. If you already use JustWatch to check what is streaming where, little will change except the extra option to watch on JustWatch TV itself.