Syncbak’s VUit, a free ad-supported streaming platform focused on local content, has expanded its news lineup under a new carriage deal with CBS.
The agreement adds local streaming channels from CBS-owned stations in 13 markets including: New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento and San Francisco.
The latest additions grow VUit’s local news and content partners to more than 260 stations across the U.S., covering 167 markets or nearly 80% of the country’s DMAs.
As part of the carriage agreement, premium national entertainment and lifestyle programming from Paramount is also joining VUit with a trio of channels. Those include Mixible (formerly known as ET Live), Inside Edition, and Dabl, a CBS Media Ventures’ lifestyle network.
According to VUit, the expanded content lineup is the latest example of what’s been a year of expansion and continued growth on the platform.
“From our continued expansion of local news streaming across the country, to becoming a fresh and intriguing model for the syndication of national content, major players in the media world recognize the power and potential of what we have built,” said Jack Perry, CEO of Syncbak, VUit’s parent company. “In an increasingly streaming-first world, this deal is a win for everyone – for the stations looking to expand revenue opportunities, for advertisers looking to reach audiences in hyper-local and hyper-targeted ways, and for viewers who want to access content in a flexible, easy manner.”
Earlier in 2022 VUit reached deals with handful of station groups to expand content, including Capitol Broadcasting Company, Lockwood Broadcast Group, Marquee Broadcasting, Fort Myers Broadcasting Company and Sunbeam Television.
“VUit is a product built around local news, and we are thrilled to add our 13 local streaming channels to broaden their US coverage,” said Sahand Sepehrnia, SVP of Streaming at CBS Stations, in a statement. “We have had a long-standing relationship with Syncbak and are excited to grow our partnership with Jack and his team.”
VUit launched in September 2020 with initial partners that included more than 200 TV stations owned by Gray Television, Meredith Corporation, Cowles Media, Heritage Broadcasting Group and Morgan Media. At launch each broadcast group was offering live streams, and in addition each participating station agreed to produce and stream at least 12 live events a year exclusively for VUit.
Last year the service further bolstered its local offering with channels from Cox Media Group, as well as Hearst Television and Citadel Communications, among others.
In announcing the deal with CBS, VUit also touted advertising growth on the platform. The streaming service disclosed a 31% year over year increase in ads served between June 2021 and June 2022, alongside a 37% average CPM increase in the first half of the year, and growth in revenue sharing among station groups of 121% for the first half of 2022. Year to date, revenue sharing is up 192%, according to the company.
VUit isn’t the only free streaming service looking to serve up local content. Allen Media Group’s Local Now is another service that touts localized news and entertainment coverage in more than 225 markets, including a Local Now channel in every DMA. In September Local Now added 27 FAST channels from Hearst Television. Larger FAST services have also been growing local news coverage, such as Roku which continued to add more local news feeds from NBC stations to The Roku Channel this year, noting that users are engaging with the category in a meaningful way.
As TVREV analyst Alan Wolk noted in a primer report on the FAST landscape, local news is a big draw for free ad-supported streaming platforms.
“News is a huge driver of FAST viewing too – news and movies were the two categories that all the executives we spoke with – regardless of which service they were with - cited as being the most popular with viewers,” wrote Wolk.”
VUit’s parent Syncbak, meanwhile, plays a separate but connected role in the broadcast and streaming industry, helping to power OTT products, including providing local live streams to Paramount+, Hulu, FuboTV, and the NFL, among others. Syncbak has an end-to-end broadcast-to-OTT platform that’s used by broadcasters for a variety of functions, such as livestream transcoding, cloud-based rights resolution, geo-location services, cloud-based DVR, and dynamic ad insertion.
According to the company, Syncbak’s technology reaches the U.S. population across 209 markets, representing 64 station groups and all major networks including CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, The CW, and Univision.