Samsung continues to make efforts to license key proprietary software and entertainment components from its smart TV ecosystem to third-party gadget makers.

And the Korean electronics company has reportedly had recent talks with China's TCL about licensing the Samsung TV Plus FAST service for deployment in TCL sets.

Veteran media-tech reporter Janko Roettgers first broke the news on his new newsletter, Lowpass. Neither Samsung nor TCL has confirmed or commented on these reported discussions.

Samsung announced in October that it would begin licensing its TVOS, Tizen, to third-party smart TV original development manufacturers Atmaca, HKC and Tempo. And Samsung started licensing Tizen to makers of mobile phones and other non-smart TV gadgets two years ago. Roettgers told Next TV over LinkedIn Friday that the discussions with TCL and other third-party TV makers are separate and involve only the Samsung TV Plus free ad-supported streaming service.

Launching in 2015, Samsung TV Plus boasts more than 200 channels in the U.S. market. And it now distributes around 1,800 channels total across 24 countries. According to Roettgers, its active user count has reached 17.4 million, which is no tiny audience, but much smaller than the 70 million-plus-size active user bases enjoyed by rival FASTs such as Roku and Pluto TV.

As Roettgers also points out, core to Samsung's TV Plus strategy has been the deployment of exclusive channels, such as “The Movie Hub,” “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Samsung Wild Life.” He said Samsung originally tried to interest third-party set makers in licensing just its exclusive channels, but didn't get anywhere with that. Thus, Samsung is trying to license its entire TV Plus service.

Samsung remains the world's biggest seller of smart TVs, moving 42 million units in 2021 alone, according to research company Omdia.

Putting so many of its branded flagship products in living rooms globally paves runway for Samsung to sell the same customers a wide range of other home electronic devices and appliances.

But the FAST advertising business is showing the kind of promise, in and of itself, that justifies its expansion away from the Samsung hardware footprint in order to grow.

According to the latest FAST data put out by research company TVREV, FASTs will soon surpass cable and broadcast in revenue. And by 2027, they'll generate $69 billion out of an overall U.S. TV ad budget of $101 billion.

As for TCL, it burst onto the North American scene as a smart TV maker around four years ago with inexpensive Roku-powered sets that undercut Samsung and fellow Korean CE company LG.

But TCL has recently shown a willingness to license third-party OS and other software from numerous places. TCL said at CES 2022 that it had shipped 10 million devices globally powered by Android TV and Google TV, for example. ■

Samsung said it licensed its Tizen TV operating systems to other set makers for the first time.

The setmakers, including Atmaca, HKC and Tempo, will have new models available in Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S. that will have access to features including Samsung TV Plus streaming platform.

"2022 has been a memorable year for Tizen OS as we celebrate its 10th anniversary and the very first Tizen-powered smart TVs available from other brands," said Yongjae Kim, executive VP of visual display business at Samsung Electronics. "Starting with these new Tizen-powered smart TVs, we will continue to expand the licensing program and introduce Tizen OS and its ecosystem to more products and brands around the world."

Also: Samsung Tizen Now the No. 1 Smart TV OS in the U.S.

Samsung teamed up with the Linux Foundation to unveil the first version of the Tizen OS in 2012. About 200 million people from 197 countries now use Samsung Smart TVs powered by Tizen.

Samsung announced its Tizen TV Platform Licensing program at the Samsung Developer Conference in 2021. ■

Samsung is expanding the streaming service it includes with its smart TVs, Samsung TV Plus, to its Galaxy smartphones. 

Available online starting Wednesday at the Galaxy Store and Google Play Store, the Samsung TV Plus app will run on Galaxy Note20, Galaxy S20, Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy S10 series mobile devices. (It apparently won’t be compatible with other Android-based smartphones.)

Samsung TV Plus is an ad-supported, free-to-consumer streaming service with 135 channels. The Korean electronics giant, which is a leader in the North American smart TV market, includes its TV Plus app in Tizen, the operating software it uses to power its TVs. 

Tizen is the most widely deployed connected TV OS in the world, controlling 11% of streaming devices globally, according to data released earlier this month by Strategy Analytics. 

Also read: Samsung Controls 14% of Fragmented Global OTT Device Biz, Leads the World

This migration represents a bit of a reverse-course in the typical evolutionary path that OTT apps follow. Google’s Android TV and Apple’s tvOS, for example, are both rooted in their company’s respective mobile device applications, Android and iOS, for example. 

Notably, Samsung was unsuccessful in its earlier efforts to transition Tizen to power its smartphones. 

Also notable: Samsung cancelled its 2020 developers conference amid the ubiquitous COVID-19 concerns. 

“Please be advised, the Samsung Developer Conference in 2020 has been cancelled. We are disappointed that we will not be hosting the event this year and getting the chance to interact directly with you,” Samsung announced Tuesday.

There will be no virtual iteration, which has led some in the tech press to speculate that the company has little in the way of new products to announce. 

In the battle for OTT supremacy, controlling the operating system of a smart TV is called “pole position.”

Whether it’s Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung’s Tizen or Android TV, once a buyer takes a new flat panel out of the box, they tend to most often use the OS native to their television, regardless as to whatever connected device is plugged into HDMI 1.

And one of the unintended consequences of the Trump Administration’s trade war with China has been a major shakeup in terms of which OTT ecosystem gets into the most living rooms.

According to a report released over the summer by research firm IHS Markit, 89% of smart TVs sold in the U.S. are smart TVs. And of the smart TVs sold in the U.S. in the first quarter, 37% were powered by Roku, which was up from 23% in the fourth quarter.

Roku surpasses the previous market leader, Tizen, which is the operating system powering Korean consumer electronics brand Samsung, as well as webOS, which belongs to another Korean brand, LG. Roku also surpassed Amazon Fire TV and Android TV.

The Roku OS primarily powers smart TVs made in China, such as TCL. With the Trump Administration upping tariffs on Chinese-made goods like TVs to 15%, effective in the fourth quarter, IHS Chinese manufactures upped their shipments to the U.S. in the first half of the year.

"The boom in Chinese TV sales put Roku at the top of the North American market for the first time since the third quarter of 2017," said Paul Gray, research director, IHS Markit. "Roku outstripped Samsung’s Tizen and LG’s webOS because of the popularity of the low-priced Chinese smart TVs.”

Beyond Trump’s trade war with China, the smart TV market is about to get even more complex. This month, China’s OnePlus—a company widely known in the smart phone market—will release a new smart TV line that, among other premium features, will include eight speakers. The new devices will run on a customized version of Android TV. 

Extending its reach to a key smart TV platform, Nuvyyo, the company behind the Tablo-branded over-the-air DVRs for cord-cutters, has launched a native app for Samsung smart TVs that are powered by the Tizen operating system.

RELATED: Nuvyyo Cuts Price on Tablo Dual

With that launch, coming just ahead of the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Nuvyyo adds another major OS for smart TVs, expanding on earlier support for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and LG Electronics’ webOS.

The new app for Tizen-powered TVs (starting with Samsung 2015 model years) provides access to the Tablo’s content discovery platform, as well as live playback, and DVR functions via an interface that’s tailored for big screen TVs and works with the TV’s remote control.