Legal broadcast streaming service provider Didja has announced the addition of programmatically decisioned dynamic ad insertion (DAI) to its LocalBTV platform.

Los Altos, California-based Didja provides a free streaming app supported by Roku, Android TV, Apple TV, as well as Samsung and Vizio smart TVs, designed to enable consumers to stream local broadcast stations ... with the actual blessing of the broadcasters.

Also: Didja Raises $12M More to Fuel ‘LocalBTV’ Plans

The privately funded Didja aims to avoid the pitfalls of Aereo and Locast by actually working with broadcasters, gaining explicit permission from local broadcast signal owners for inclusion in its unique authenticated geo-fenced “antenna TV without an antenna” service. Didja claims to provided broadcasters with an OTT audience they otherwise might not get, one now monetized with real-time, location-aware DAI, processed in the AWS cloud.

Didja said that station sales teams can now enhance their clients’ linear over-the-air ads in LocalBTV with in-market, geo-fenced creative versioning. The can re-sell those avails as new inventory for digital-only advertisers. Broadcasters can also choose to tap into LocalBTV’s exclusive ad sales rep firm partnerships and/or Magnite’s SpotX programmatic sourcing platform for “hands-free” ad revenue generation.

“The utility of LocalBTV has enabled our broadcast stations to reach viewers in environments we intrinsically couldn’t reach with pay TV alone," said Josh Castro, general manager of the My Central Valley TV station group in Fresno, Calif. “In addition to entertaining new audiences, the inclusion of DAI/DAR is a brand-new revenue stream for our stations. As broadcasters, we have never been able to monetize live, linear digital video avails until now."

Added LocalBTV CEO Jim Long: “I’m very proud of how our world-class tech team is solving the very hard problem of integrating impressions-based digital ad insertion into traditional local broadcast TV ad breaks. I believe we are the only company in the world doing this, and it shows the power of our patented Edge Video Platform as a compelling way to create more revenue for broadcasters.”

LocalBTV provides more than 700 stations, as well as around 100 "hyper-local" community channels, across 21 designated marketing areas, serving around 30% of the U.S. Didja said around 200 of the stations provided by LocalBTV are enabled with DAI.

Didja has locked up digital over-the-air networks, including Cozi TV and EstrellaTV, but it's still trying to nail down deals with Big Four broadcasters. ■

Didja, a company that is focused on OTT apps and services that provide access to local broadcast TV networks, has expanded into Los Angeles.  

That offering, branded as SoCalBTV, is providing access to select local channels to consumers in greater Los Angeles, including the counties of Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Orange, Inyo, Riverside, Kern and Ventura.  

Didja estimates that the app for that market segment, offered on iOS and Android mobile devices and web browsers, is available to more than 5.5 million homes in the southern California.  

Didja offering its apps on a localized basis for free, and selling an optional cloud DVR service for $4.95 per month that includes 1 terabyte of storage.  

The launch of the service in L.A., targeted to consumers who watch TV using an antenna or live in an area where reception is poor or nonexistent, follows earlier pilots in Phoenix, Ariz. (branded as PhoenixBTV), and in the San Francisco Bay Area (marketed as BayAreaBTV). 

Didja obtains rights to carry broadcast TV channels on its apps; it captures the over-the-air TV feeds from partner programmers at a local data center and prepares them for streaming on supported devices in the local region. 

The SoCalBTV offering is launching with a lineup of 34 channels, including Skylink, Azteca, KDOC and LSTV. Lacking is access to local broadcast TV feeds from the Big Four – ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.  

Didja reiterated that is “committed to adding all local broadcast channels to LocalBTV in all our markets.”  

"Many of our viewers are members of Southern California’s Asian communities, and they depend on us to for news and entertainment programming in their native language," Dennis J. Davis, GM of NRJ Television Stations in Southern California, which has three stations, in the area, said in a statement. "SoCalBTV offers access to our channels on smartphones, which are increasingly used to watch TV by people of all cultures. This method of program delivery helps us reach our audience anywhere they are in the Los Angeles DMA." 

Didja said the next markets in line include Houston; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and New York City, with launches there expected for later this year. Didja recently raised $12 million to help fund those expansion plans.  

Didja, the company behind a new OTT service that provides access to local broadcast networks, said it has landed a $12 million round of funding led by Vestech Partners as it aims to reach new markets, add features to its platforms, and broaden its business model.

Didja, which has raised $22 million so far,  has introduced its service/app with certain local broadcast TV networks in two markets -- Phoenix, Ariz. (branded as PhoenixBTV), and in the San Francisco Bay Area (marketed as BayAreaBTV).

In the Bay Area, for example, Didja offers OTT access to 35 broadcast channels, including TV Azteca (Spanish), Skylink and U Channel (Chinese), DiyaTV (South Asian), Viet Bay and Net V (Vietnamese), and KPOP (South Korean music videos), and hopes to eventually score distribution deals that will enable it to offer the local feeds of majors like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

Early on, Didja is focusing on bilingual homes and offering its apps on a localized basis for free, and pitching an optional cloud DVR service for $4.99 per month for 1 terabyte of storage. Didja obtains rights to carry broadcast TV channels on its apps; it captures the over-the-air TV feeds from partner programmers at a local data center and prepares them for streaming on supported devices in the local region.

RELATED: Didja Takes Dozens of TV Stations Over-the-Top in the Bay Area 

The fresh funds will be used in part for expansion, including plans to enter Los Angeles in early 2018.

The new round will also be used to try out some new concepts and to bump marketing and try to expand channel counts in San Francisco, according to Jim Long, Didja’s CEO.

Some of that work involves a feature that drives viewers to download network apps and direct-to-consumer apps from other programmers and networks. Didja is starting to test that out with some stations in Phoenix.

Didja, Long added, also plans to experiment with some ideas that will enable its apps to support broadcasters in smaller markets.

Looking ahead, Didja is also noodling on a longer-term business model by which it would offer a package of local broadcast networks for about $15 per month – with about two-thirds of that going to the network partners.

Didja has generally focused on millennials and other younger audiences that tend to consume video on their mobile phones and to capture consumers who might be cord-cutters or have otherwise fallen out of the pay TV ecosystem.

Long believes Didja’s model will help local broadcasters broaden their viewership base and reach consumers they have trouble reaching today who, for example, are interested in watching  broadcast TV channels but aren’t keen to using an antenna.

He said Didja will also be pursuing a larger “growth round” that would aim to include participation from large corporations, media companies and other investors.

RELATED: Didja Loses Set of Digi-Nets for Local OTT TV Offering

Didja’s approach hasn’t been without hiccups. Last month, for instance, its apps dropped Katz Broadcasting digi-nets -- Bounce, Escape and Grit – with the hope that their absence would be temporary.

“We’re working through that,” Long said, believing that what it will take to restore those networks on Didja’s platforms is “nothing that we think is insurmountable.”

Didja, a company that has launched an OTT offering featuring several local broadcast channels in Phoenix and the Bay Area, has hit a speed bump of sorts.

RELATED: Didja Takes Dozens of TV Stations Over-the-Top in the Bay Area 

As reported by FreeTVBlog, those services – branded locally as Phoenix BTV and Bay Area BTV, recently dropped three Katz Broadcasting digi-nets: Bounce, Escape and Grit.

Didja confirmed that those networks are not currently in those local lineups, but believes the situation is temporary, and remains hopeful that they will be restored to its lineups. 

Didja did not elaborate on why those networks have been taken off. Katz Broadcasting has been asked for comment.

According to FreeTVBlog, Didja customers in Phoenix recently received an alert that Grit, Escape and Bounce were temporarily unavailable. “We hope to bring you these channels again soon.”

Speculation is that the two sides still must hammer out a formal distribution deal.

Didja’s approach with its LocalBTV offering (a service that is rebranded by market) is to sign distribution deals with local broadcasters on a free, OTT-delivered live TV service for web browsers and mobile devices, complemented by a paid (and optional) DVR offering. With those deals in hand, Didja captures the over-the-air TV feeds from partners at a local data center, and converts them into OTT video streams that are accessible only in the local DMA. By comparison, the now-defunct Aereo tried to do something similar without getting carriage agreements.

Didja’s service is generally designed to appeal to millennials and other younger audiences that tend to consume video on their mobile phones and to capture consumers who are cord-cutters or have otherwise fallen out of the pay TV ecosystem. The lineup is also aimed at bilingual households.

Following a trial in Phoenix, Didja followed up with a launch in the Bay Area that featured dozens of local channels, including TV Azteca), Skylink, U Channel (Chinese), DiyaTV, Viet Bay, Net V, KPOP and Blues Television Network.

Didja’s intentions include adding local feeds from major broadcasters such as ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS, and to eventually offer a lineup of up to 70 channels. Los Angeles is on its list of expansion markets.

Following an earlier trial in Phoenix, Didja has teamed with a group of broadcast TV stations in the Bay Area to deliver live, local signals over-the-top to web browsers and mobile devices alongside with an optional DVR service.

RELATED: ‘PhoenixBTV’ Streams Batch of Local Broadcast Nets to Mobile Devices

Didja’s LocalBTV offering, branded as BayAreaBTV in the local area, is a free app that also supports an optional cloud DVR service that costs $4.95 per month for 1 terabyte of storage (under the default setting, recordings will auto-expire after 28 days, but users have the option to keep individual recordings longer).

BayAreaBTV is initially supported on web browsers and apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. The service is also accessible via Chromecast streaming adapters and Apple TV boxes (via AirPlay). Didja plans to extend support to other TV-connected platforms.

Didja believes that the offering will be particularly appealing to millennials and other younger audiences that like to watch TV on mobile screens, as well as bilingual households in the region. 

On a more general basis, Didja is trying to capture cord-cutters who have fallen out of the pay TV ecosystem, as well as consumers who have never taken a traditional pay TV service. It also views itself as a service that could complement a growing crop of virtual MVPDs such as YouTube TV, while also giving local broadcasters another, easily accessible distribution outlet in their local markets.

BayAreaBTV is launching with a lineup of more than 35 channels that include a mix of non-English speaking channels offered in the area, some local English-language stations, as well as a batch of national “diginets.”

A representative list of channels available via the service in the Bay Area includes TV Azteca (Spanish), Skylink and U Channel (Chinese), DiyaTV (South Asian), Viet Bay and Net V (Vietnamese), KPOP (South Korean music videos), Blues Television Network, Bounce, GetTV, and Escape.

BayAreaBTV as well as the Phoenix-area version – a service called PhoenixBTV that has a lineup of about 25 channels -- currently do not deliver live local feeds from major broadcasters such as ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS, though the company’s intention is to add them to its local OTT lineups, eventually, according to Jim Long, Didja’s CEO.

Long said the aim is to offer a lineup of between 60 to 70 channels at some point. Didja likewise plans to expand coverage to 40 metro areas in the U.S., with Los Angeles being its next target market.

Unlike the model that the now-defunct Aereo used for a short-lived OTT TV service that attempted to deliver local broadcast TV feeds without carriage agreements, Didja’s service carries only the broadcast networks via its OTT service that have offered consent, and access to those lineups are limited to the consumers if they are currently in the local area.

For example, Didja estimates that BayAreaBTV is available to about 2.6 million households in an eleven-county that covers Santa Clara County to the south, Mendocino County to the north, Contra Costa County to the east, and every geographic area in between.

Didja’s platform, currently limited to its first two DMAs, captures over-the-air TV feeds from partner programmers at a local data center, where that feed is then prepared for streaming to supported devices in the local region. 

BayAreaBTV and its OTT distribution model is appealing to KPOP in part because a portion of its audience doesn’t have a TV or an antenna to receive the signal.

“But they always have their phone, and they are always on their phone,” Kelly Quan, KPOP’s CEO, said in an interview, estimating that about 70% of KPOP’s audience consists of English-only speakers. 

Quan also believes the service will also deliver new audiences to KPOP. “I see this as a perfect time for this kind of app,” he said.

“The Launch of LocalBTV is a great avenue for independent content creators and networks to expand their reach and engage new audiences. It also addresses an audience that is loyal consumer of broadcast stations that are over the air but can’t watch their favorite programming on the go via mobile,” Eric Ratchman, EVP of content distribution for Univision, said in a statement. 

More about Didja’s offering and how it appeals to broadcasters such as KPOP will be featured in the October 30 issue of Multichannel News.

Billing it as “antenna TV for the mobile age,” Didja Inc. is testing a service in the Phoenix area that captures the over-the-air TV signals of select local broadcasters and streams them to Web browsers as well as market-branded apps for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.

The offering, called PhoenixBTV, is starting as a free, consumer beta that streams in more than 20 channels. Didja, which has a cloud DVR feature on its product roadmap, said it also has plans to offer a paid premium version of the service that will deliver more than 50 channels of local TV.

Users will also be able to watch the service on TVs using a Google Chromecast streaming adapter or via the Apple TV using AirPlay.  PhoenixBTV’s apps for iOS and Android went live over the weekend.

The service is only for Phoenix metro residents and won’t work for people outside that TV market, the company said.

Per the FAQ, PhoenixBTV currently offers a mix of local stations and broadcast diginets such as AZTV, MeTV, TuffTV, This TV, Retro TV, Rev’n, Azteca and Estrella, among others. However, it does not yet offer access to local feeds of majors such as ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox.

The beta launch follows an alpha version of the service that’s been live for a couple of months, according to Jim Long, Didja’s CEO, who said his company is also trying to negotiate for more channels to be part of PhoenixBTV. Also on board for the initiative is TV industry vet and former co-founder of Net2TV Jim Monroe, who is serving as GM of broadcast at Didja.

RELATED: Net2TV Seeks Buyer

Didja’s offering may remind some of Aereo, the now-defunct OTT TV service for cord-cutters that captured and redistributed local broadcast TV channels to broadband-connected devices that lost big in the courts in its battle against several broadcasters, which argued that Aereo violated copyright laws by delivering TV station signals remotely over the Internet without compensating content providers.

RELATED: Supremes Rule Against Aereo

Didja, a company that also developed Clippit, a mobile phone app that lets users create and share digital clips of live TV shows, says PhoenixBTV is different (and legal), as it has obtained approval to offer its channels for the beta offering, and intends to secure similar blessings for any additional channels that are added for the service’s eventual commercial debut.

Though Didja’s technical approach does involve the capturing of local over-the-air TV signals, Long declined to discuss the architecture of PhoenixBTV in much detail. Long also would not get into the business relationship his company has with local broadcasters.

“We have a philosophy that we want a service that is simple, fast and of high quality,” he said, noting that “fast channel-change” is one area of technical focus.

As for the beta trial, Long said it will be available to anyone locally who qualifies to receive it, though the company might decide to pause and un-pause how many people it allows access to the app during the test period.

“We’re prepared to do the test for as long as it takes, Long said, noting that the hope is that PhoenixBTV will offer a commercial product sometime in 2017.

In addition to the technology, PhoenixBTV will also use the trials to help it determine its audience.

But PhoenixBTV will largely target cord-cutters and cord-nevers, people who want broadcast TV while they are on the go in the market, or simply can’t get local broadcast TV with a regular digital antenna. It also views itself differently than a virtual MVPD skinny-bundle service like Sling TV, because Didja’s focus is on local broadcast.

Long said Didja is also hopeful that its product will also be attractive to millennial audiences and perhaps get them to watch more local broadcast TV. 

“We think people are more interested in local TV than some people realize,” Long said.

PhoenixBTV isn’t the only company or service focused on TV station streaming to arise since the fall of Aereo.

For example, Telletopia Foundation, a San Diego-based company, is also looking to offer a legal OTT service that offers local broadcast TV fare and relies on retrans payments and an exemption from the compulsory license for nonprofits, with original aims to go wide with a national service in 2016.

TabletTV, a joint venture of Granite Broadcasting and U.K.-based Motive Television, is taking a different tack by enabling users to capture OTA signals on a small device called the TPod and feed them to nearby connected mobile device.

RELATED: TabletTV Lets Viewers Mix, Match (subscription required)