David Letterman is the latest late-night star to enter the free ad-supported TV (FAST) market.
Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants is teaming up with Samsung TV Plus to launch “Letterman TV,” a new 24-hour streaming channel featuring content from the comedian’s legendary run in late-night.
The channel, which launches today, pulls from 4,000 hours of content from Letterman’s tenure at CBS’ The Late Show. Letterman is also contributing new commentary to the channel, though Letterman TV will largely be an archival affair.
Letterman will offer intros for the classic footage with “fresh commentary and behind-the-scenes anecdotes, from reflections on his interviews with Adam Sandler to revisiting his holiday antics,” according to a statement from Samsung.
Describing the venture, Worldwide Pants’ Walter Kim said that, “With more than 4,000 hours from which to choose, the channel will continuously change.” Kim, the production company’s executive producer for digital content, added, “Dave’s show was the original viral video.”
New content is set to be added monthly. The first batch includes moments featuring Will Ferrell, Tom Hanks, Don Rickles, Julia Roberts, and Ringo Starr.
Letterman offered his own self-effacing praise for the new offering. He noted that he was excited and added, “Now I can watch myself age without looking in the mirror!”
Letterman TV isn’t the first late-night comedy archive to join Samsung TV Plus.
Last year, the company launched Conan O’Brien TV, a retrospective channel of O’Brien’s content from TBS’ Conan. Samsung considered that a strong enough selling point to put O’Brien’s face on boxes of its new TVs.
And this past June, the company licensed Saturday Night Live‘s “SNL Vault” channel—a 24-hour stream of vintage SNL sketches that also runs on platforms like Amazon Freevee, the Roku Channel, and NBC’s own Peacock streaming service.
While the Conan and Letterman streaming channels are exclusive to Samsung TV Plus at launch, they’re expected to ultimately be available elsewhere. Samsung TV Plus is available for free across Samsung TVs, Galaxy devices, Smart Monitors, and Family Hub devices.
