At a time when the streaming landscape is getting more confusing, Philo believes its strongest value proposition is offering access to free and premium entertainment content, with as much of it delivered through its own app as possible.

For nearly a decade, Philo positioned itself as the most-affordable way to watch entertainment, knowledge and reality-based TV shows, with its subscription price often far lower than the traditional cable or satellite TV package.

With many of its peers starting to replicate Philo’s offering of lower-priced, skinny pay TV packages, the service has shifted its focus, marketing itself as an all-in-one platform for entertainment that doesn’t break the bank: The company’s core $33 per month package offers nearly 100 premium channels like Comedy Central, AMC Networks, IFC, Lifetime and Nickelodeon, with included access to the ad-supported tiers of AMC Plus, HBO Max and Discovery Plus.

The inclusion of network-owned streaming apps follows a broader trend in the pay TV industry over the past two years: Charter kicked off the trend during a dispute with Disney, which ended with an agreement that effectively broke the traditional pay TV bundle. In the months since that deal, other services like Fubo, DIRECTV and Sling TV have launched their own low-cost streaming packages that include news and sports networks; DIRECTV’s genre-based plans also include network-owned apps.

Philo isn’t restrained from making those same deals, but the company sees immense value in focusing on entertainment, lifestyle and knowledge channels, and leaving the news and sports networks to others.

At the Parks Associates Future of Video event in Southern California last week, Philo said it wants to stand out from the crowd as a “nimble, budget-friendly alternative, targeting consumers who want entertainment-oriented live and on-demand content, without the higher costs of sports or local channels.”

Rather than pursuing higher-cost sports and news networks, Philo believes there is still a market for a service that focuses squarely on entertainment — one that adds value by onboarding free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels and distributing content from network-owned streaming apps within its own ecosystem.

The value proposition for streamers is simple: Philo is the all-in-one entertainment solution, one where subscribers have access to premium TV channels and streaming content from HBO, Discovery and AMC Networks, as well as more than 100 FAST channels, without having to switch apps.

Adam Salmon, the Head of Content and Business Development at Philo, says FAST is becoming a more-important part of the company’s programming strategy: Philo customers who churn out of their pay TV subscription can still watch free content from within the app, and the revenue-sharing model allows Philo to continue earning income from those streamers.

“If you think about our paid service having a focus on entertainment, reality and lifestyle — those are the things we’re focusing on within our FAST content and our AVOD content,” Salmons said in September. “That’s what you’re seeing us lean into with our FAST channel portfolio from WBD, AMC and A+E, and we’ve also brought in things that feel adjacent from Lionsgate.”

FAST also allows Philo to pursue channels based on genres that aren’t carried in its premium subscription plan, like niche sports and international news, which helps inform the company of the type of programming its subscribers might like to see on the subscription side.

“The nice thing about FAST is, because all of it’s done on a revenue-sharing basis, it allows is to experiment with genres that we might not otherwise be able to in our paid package,” Salmons said. “So, when you see things like sports and sports-adjacent content, news content and other things, it’s a bit of a testing ground for us to see, outside our core genres, whether our audience has an interest in those things.”

Philo was not first to market with its free streaming offering: Dish Network’s Sling TV started incorporating FAST channels into its platform a few years ago, and eventually relaunched it under a standalone brand called Sling Freestream. DIRECTV and Fubo have launched similar products over the past two years.

What separates Philo from the rest is a blurring of the lines: It groups FAST channels separate from its premium entertainment networks in its electronic programming guide by default, but as users start to favorite channels, FAST and premium networks become co-mingled. The company also doesn’t have a separate brand for its FAST service, opting instead to market it alongside the subscription offering.

On the subscription end, onboarding more network-owned streaming apps is becoming a bigger priority for Philo, especially as it overcomes incremental affiliate fee increases from some of its programming partners. Last year, it increased the price of its core offering to $28 per month, but also added access to the ad-supported tier of AMC Plus at no extra cost. In September, it raised the price again to $33 per month, but included the ad-supported tiers of HBO Max and Discovery Plus.

AMC Networks and HBO parent Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) are among Philo’s four main investor-owners, the other two being A+E Global Media and Paramount Skydance. One of the notable streaming apps not offered by Philo is Paramount Plus, though executives have previously affirmed an interest in making the app available to Philo subscribers on terms that make sense.

Paramount Plus is a more-complicated offering than the other three apps, because Paramount Skydance offers news and sports through the service’s ad-supported tier. It isn’t clear how much Philo might have to charge to offer Paramount Plus to its customers, though Salmons said they’re still considering ways to do it.

“We’d be interested in doing something with Paramount; we’re still trying to figure out how to do that,” Salmons affirmed. “There’s still a lot that needs to be worked out in that respect, but I think we’ll continue to look at things where we feel like we can offer a value.”

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