The Independent Streaming Alliance (ISA) has a handful of new members joining its ranks as the forum aims to collaboratively address industry challenges facing ad-supported indie streamers.
ISA this week announced FilmRise, Gusto TV, Gunpowder & Sky, DangerTV, and Graham Media are the latest members. Those streamers join Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Cineverse, Future Today, kewliTV, Revry, The E.W. Scripps Company, Tastemade, TMB (Trusted Media Brands) and Vevo, which together formed the ISA last June.
It’s worth noting that despite being named as part of the group when it formed in June 2023, Allen Media Group was not mentioned as a founding member alongside other companies in the latest release announcing new ISA members. It wasn’t immediately clear why AMG wasn’t included in the announcement and whether it’s still part of the forum or has left the organization, but Allen Media Group is still listed on ISA’s website as a current member. StreamTV Insider reached out to ISA but had not heard back as of publication and will update with any additional information.
As for latest members, Tim Ware, SVP of programmatic sales and partnerships for CSSE, in a statement expressed excitement for the five new additions to ISA’s roster, while highlighting indie streamers’ distinct offerings.
“Each new member delivers unique content offerings and illustrates the value and importance of independent content creators to its millions of viewers, which is a primary objective of the Independent Streaming Alliance,” Ware stated.
ISA’s focus is all about a “better together” mentality, where the smaller and independent streaming services have more might collectively as they look to develop and propose solutions to CTV industry challenges including measurement, demand, distribution and inclusion.
“We’re excited to be joining the ISA and looking forward to contributing to the ISA’s standards and practices initiatives as well as the collective scale it will bring to CTV,” said Javier Saralegui CEO and founder of DangerTV, in a statement.
Last October the forum tapped measurement vendor iSpot for an independent study in an effort to help quantify the ten founding ISA members’ combined value, including Allen Media Group. iSpot found the indie streamers collectively reach around 17.9 million U.S. TV households, or nearly 15% of the country. With the latest additions, ISA said that figure would exceed 20 million – further validating the scale and value ISA members bring to the table.
“FilmRise has been a programmer of premium Connected TV inventory since the earliest days of AVOD & FAST,” said Danny Fisher, CEO of FilmRise, in a statement. “As the CTV space continues to evolve, we are excited to join the ISA to help advance initiatives that will allow us all to continue to provide great programming to a rapidly expanding audience.”
Speaking at the 12th annual CIMM Summit in October, Evan Bregman, GM of Streaming at food and lifestyle streamer Tastemade, noted that the advent of FAST channels and AVOD environments present opportunities for advertisers but challenges remain for independent streamers - which have niche but attentive audiences - to stand out.
“You have, I think, a really great opportunity as an advertiser to find hyper engaged audiences that are contextually relevant to whatever it is you’re looking to market,” Bregman said at the time. “But right now the ecosystem is not necessarily set up in such a way that you could find them.”
The ISA plans to continue recruiting members across independent ad-supported streaming services in the CTV space.