Hello friends!
2022 was a huge year for Plex and we can’t thank you enough for being the most important part of it! First off, this is the year we launched our new Discover feature, an important step for ensuring that Plex is the easiest, most comprehensive, and most insightful place to start your media viewing experience—whether you know what you want to watch or not. Now, Plex effortlessly points you directly to your favorite movies and shows across all your services—without you having to keep track of what title is on what app. Better yet, we’re able to provide authentic recommendations of what to watch on Plex, on Netflix, on HBO Max, and so much more. While streaming has gotten more and more confusing over time, Plex is on your side, trying to make streaming easy and fun again.
And if you’re reading this blog, you probably know that we’re a company built by passionate TV and movie nerds who are driven to build the best streaming community on earth. By helping to remove the pain and confusion from finding the perfect show or movie at the right time, we’re delivering on that mission of making Plex the centerpiece of your entertainment experience. Looking forward, Discover gives us an amazing foundation to continue to elevate the experience and value of Plex in 2023 and beyond. We know it’s part of a marketing tagline, but it’s true: we want Plex to take the struggle out of streaming.
This year we also brought on a ton of amazing content partners around the world. From huge globally recognized brands such as Paramount, FOX, PBS, BBC, NBCUniversal, Hallmark, and indie-film darling A24 to regional powerhouses such as Palatin from Germany, Shemaroo from India, Bounty Films from Australia, Arrow from the UK, Elevation from Canada, and so many more. And speaking of great free movies and shows, this month we’re excited to launch Breaking Bad on Stories by AMC. We also increased the number of quality free movies and free Live TV channels, so now Plex can always offer you something, no matter your mood (or attention span).
Don’t think that we’ve forgotten all our personal media fans either, since we’ve been hard at work at improving our platform and making your media collection quicker to search, curate, and stream to all your devices. We added even more ear candy to your Plexamp with features such as AutoEQ, Guest DJ, customizable home screen, link sharing, and track previews. Plex shines with support for more media formats than ever, including Dolby Atmos in your home theater. In short, we are dedicated to building upon our reputation as the gold standard in the personal media industry. Based on your feedback and requests, we added multiple edition support, new Windows 64-bit support, the ability to sync your watch state and ratings, and a new Home Theater PC app! (Keep the requests coming!) For those of you who use Plex to watch local TV with your antenna, we now have a hybrid guide that organizes all your antenna and streaming stations in one elegant interface. And with Discover Credits, personal media users (as well as free movie & TV users) now have a powerful new way of navigating your media libraries by favorite actors, directors, and writers.
As a business, we continued to grow and expand with amazing new employees from almost every continent in the world (sorry Antarctica!), many of whom got to meet in person as travel restrictions finally started to ease. With these new employees, we were able to bring in even more partners to the Plex ecosystem—from global studios and TV manufacturers, as well as a whole new palette of Plex perk partners. And we were able to sharpen our Plex logo with your input so that we can continue to be recognized and win new fans around the world in a very competitive streaming marketplace.
So as you can see, it’s been quite a year. And next year promises to be even bigger with some huge new features coming soon that we’re super excited to share with you. But as we said at the drop, none of this happens without you. Your support, your ideas, your bug reports, and features requests, it’s amazing to watch the Plex story continue to spread around the world. So we hope that at the end of the year, you’re able to find some time to relax and enjoy some quality time with friends and family. Around a good meal, a good conversation, or (you never know!) perhaps even a good movie or show.
– Keith, CEO of Plex
Highlights from 2022
Follow along with our achievements from the past year.
January
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Last Knights
Series: True Justice
Live TV Channel: Crime 360
February
New Feature Launch: Hybrid guide
Company Milestone: Partnered with a third-party DEI expert to continue to drive our significant diversity and inclusion goals at Plex.
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Spider-Man Trilogy
Series: True Justice
Live TV Channel: Are We There Yet?
March
Company Milestone: Flexible Fridays launched
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Last Knights
Series: True Justice
Live TV Channel: Journy’s Bourdain All Day
April
New Feature Launch: Discover
Company Milestone: New logo introduced
New Content Partners: NBC News Now
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: A Score to Settle
Series: True Justice
Live TV Channel: Journy’s Bourdain All Day
May
New App Launch: HTPC App
New Content Partners:
Hallmark
Hearst Very Local
Rakuten TV (Launched in UK, most European countries)
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Blended
Series: True Justice
Live TV Channel: Hallmark Movies & More
June
New App Launch: Plexamp on Raspberry Pi
New Content Partners:
Local Now
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Edge of Tomorrow
Series: True Justice
Live TV Channel: Hallmark Movies & More
July
New Content Partner: A24
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Edge of Tomorrow
Series: Hannibal
Live TV Channel: Hallmark Movies & More
August
New Features Launched:
Multiple edition support
View state sync
Discover Together on mobile (iOS/Android and web)
Company Milestone: Updated careers section with new culture/benefits pages
New Content Partner: BBC Studios
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: The Other Man
Series: Hannibal
Live TV Channel: Hallmark Movies & More
September
Community Event: Plex Pro Week
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Bordertown
Series: Hannibal
Live TV Channel: Hallmark Movies & More
October
New Feature Launch: Guest DJ (Plexamp)
Company Milestone:
Plexcon—Worldwide employee meetup (finally!) resumes after global pandemic
Plex sponsors Charity Bomb fundraiser event in Las Vegas
New Content Partner: PBS
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: The Green Mile
Series: Hannibal
Live TV Channel: Top Gear
November
New Feature Launch: Discover Credits
Company Milestone: Plex for the Planet
New Content Partner: Vevo
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: Heartbreak Ridge
Series: Kung Fu
Live TV Channel: Hannibal
December
Company Milestone:
166 employees in 23 countries
Employees donate to almost 100 local charities around the world with our Local Impact initiative.
Tinycons in Las Vegas NV, Palm Springs CA, Austin TX, and Sevilla, Spain.
We launched our new brand guidelines (including logos, colors, typography, brand voice, and more!)
We are putting the finishing touches on our brand-new Plex Gear store—look for an announcement in the new year. We’ll be featuring some fun new items—including our amazing ugly holiday sweater sweatshirt and many, many more.
New Content Partner: FOX
Most popular on Free Movies & TV:
Movie: It’s A Wonderful Life
Series: Kung Fu
Live TV Channel: Breaking Bad on Stories by AMC