Sony turns the PlayStation 5 into an ad-supported TV channel with Live TV on PS5

Sony has switched on Live TV on PS5, a free, ad-supported service that puts more than 100 linear streaming channels and an on-demand library inside the PlayStation 5’s Media tab. The service went live in the United States on August 31 and is run by Sony Pictures Television rather than the games division. Canada is next, and Sony’s Bravia televisions are due to get the same offering later this year.

The channel line-up leans on familiar FAST suppliers, with much of the inventory delivered through Xumo, the joint venture owned by Comcast and Charter. Partners named at launch include ABC News, A+E, AMC, Amazon MGM Studios, ESPN, Fox, Lionsgate, NASCAR, NBCUniversal, the NFL Channel and UFC, plus two exclusive anime channels from Sony-owned Crunchyroll. Ad serving and programmatic sales run through Publica and PubMatic.

The commercial logic is scale. Sony had sold more than 95 million PS5 consoles worldwide by June 30, according to figures cited by Variety, and the company has said publicly that it now prefers to squeeze more revenue from existing players than to chase hardware sales.

Why it matters

For connected-TV buyers, the pitch is an audience that is hard to find elsewhere. Peter Wood, executive vice president of consumer platforms and services at Sony Pictures Entertainment, told The Desk that PS5 owners “are probably not showing up in other connected TV environments often.” Younger, male-skewing gamers are exactly the segment that has drifted away from linear television and from the big FAST apps on smart TVs.

The move also signals that the console is becoming an ad platform in its own right. Consoles have hosted third-party streaming apps for years, but Sony’s version arrives with a dedicated ad-tech stack and the backing of a studio that already sells inventory to national advertisers. Because the service sits behind a PlayStation account sign-in, Sony can bring logged-in, first-party audience data to the table, something most FAST channels lack.

What’s next

The open question is whether gamers, who have historically resisted advertising inside their consoles, will treat a TV tab differently from ads in a game. Sony says it will add channels, themed programming blocks and live events over time. If engagement holds, expect the inventory to appear in the same CTV deals as Pluto, Tubi and Roku Channel by the upfront season next year.