Vidaa, Amagi team up for FAST channel distribution

Vidaa is doubling down on its free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) expansion, leveraging Amagi to bring FAST channels to its users in the Americas, Australia and the U.K.

Through their new partnership, Amagi will also offer Vidaa its cloud streaming and monetization products, so that Vidaa can better distribute and monetize its existing FAST channels. Those products include Amagi’s Cloudport cloud playout service and Amagi Thunderstorm, its dynamic ad insertion platform.

Amagi’s collection of FAST channels touts access to over 500 content brands across a variety of genres. The company says FAST platforms leveraging Amagi’s technology can easily launch their owned and operated channels as well as expand their global reach.

Vidaa and Amagi have also worked together on initiatives like the pop-up channel “America the Beautiful.”

“Vidaa has all the building blocks needed to achieve success at scale in the FAST environment," said Amagi Co-founder Srinivasan KA in a statement. "All they need is a winning combination of technology and content solutions to elevate their content acquisition and playout and help them attain their revenue goals.”

Vidaa’s first foray into the FAST space was in January 2022, when it launched channels in the U.S. and Mexico. According to Vidaa, over 1.13 billion hours of content are watched globally each month via its smart TV OS.

"Amagi's suite of FAST channels has helped us expand our channel offering to new and existing markets,” stated Guy Edri, president at Vidaa. “The deep insights that Amagi provides on content consumption and audience engagement are a welcome addition.”

Amagi has offered its technology solutions to various distributors. It’s providing Crackle Plus a supply of connected TV ad inventory as well as proprietary ad insertion capabilities.

And Cox Media Group earlier this year tapped Amagi to expand its digital streaming strategy, namely through connected TV.

These partnerships speak to the growing popularity of connected TV ads, both on the advertiser and consumer sides. A June study from LG Ads and DeepIntent revealed most consumers more positively react to CTV ads than those on traditional linear TV.

As for Vidaa, in April it teamed up with SeaChange to bolster content distribution on connected TVs and mobile devices. Vidaa is also competing in a crowded smart TV marketplace alongside big name brands like Roku, Google, LG and others. Last October it added Disney+ to Hisense and Toshiba TVs running its software.