Comcast said Thursday that it has integrated support for the Fubo app into Xumo Stream Box and Xumo TVs, as well as Xfinity Flex. 

With the inclusion, users download the Fubo app to Xumo and Flex. And if they're a subscriber to one or more of these respective services,  they'll have voice control access to the four largest virtual MVPDs, with YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV already supported by Xumo Stream Box, Xumo TV and Flex. 

These devices also come pre-installed with FAST services Xumo Play, Tubi and Pluto TV. 

Fubo, which ended March with just over 1.5 million subscribers, markets itself heavily on live sports access. 

Comcast, meanwhile, launched Xumo as a joint venture with Charter Communications two years ago, attempting to establish a gateway OS presence in living rooms increasingly dominated by TV operating systems created by Roku, Samsung, Amazon and Google.

Also Read: Xumo TV: Everything You Need to Know About the Comcast and Charter Streaming OS Joint Venture

Like Flex, Comcast is now giving the HDMI-connectable Xumo Stream Box OTT device for free to its broadband-only customers. The "Comcast Entertainment OS" also powers Xumo TV-branded smart TVs made by manufacturers including Hisense and sold at stores including Walmart. 

“For many consumers, one of the first things they look for in a streaming service is whether it provides access to their favorite sports,” said John Dixon, senior VP of entertainment for Comcast, in a statement. “With a huge collection of sports-focused channels ranging from local broadcast to national networks covering the biggest and smallest of sports, Fubo is a great addition to the growing catalog of streaming options available on our platforms.”

Added Isaac Josephson, senior VP of product management for Fubo: “Live sports is best enjoyed on the big screen — in fact, 95% of Fubo viewers are watching their favorite content on connected and smart televisions.” 

The move certainly won't help improve cord-cutting metrics for Comcast's Xfinity-branded linear video services, which lost more than 2 million customers last year.

Also read: Minnesota Senator Urges Comcast to ‘Return to the Negotiation Table’ With Diamond Sports Group

Fubo, for example, carries Bally Sports channels, regional sports networks that have been blacked out on Comcast pay TV services since late-April. Certainly, fans of the Atlanta Braves, Minnesota Twins and other Major League Baseball teams affected by this pay TV renewal impasse can simply call Comcast, ditch Xfinity X1, have the cable company send them a free Xumo Stream Box for their remaining ISP subscription, then sign up for Fubo. 

Fubo delivers a base tier of 195 channels, including many RSNs, for $80. By the time fees are factored in, it’s not a cheap “skinny” vMVPD bundle, but it’s certainly less expensive than Full Monty Comcast cable TV service, all sub fees and other gouges considered. 

Free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels have fast become a big part of how Americans consume content, according to a study from Xumo and FASTMaster Consulting,

The study found that a third of American adults said they regularly watch FAST channels during primetime hours and they spend as much time with FAST channels as with other entertainment options.

The average FAST viewer spends one hour and 40 minutes watching FAST channels in the evening. By comparison a gamer typically spends one hour and 42 minutes playing video or mobile games during this same time frame. Consumers said they scroll social media for one hour and 53 minutes, while cable TV customers spend one hour and 58 minutes watching cable network programming.

The report found that 47% of MVPD and vMVPD subscribers said they regularly watch FAST channels, and 46% of cord-cutters watch FAST channels.

Among FAST channel viewers, 72% also watch cable or broadcast TV and a whopping 86% subscribe to at least one subscription video on demand service.

“The findings of this report underscore the increasingly important role FAST plays in today’s entertainment landscape, dispelling myths and highlighting the diverse, engaged, and growing audience that finds value in our free and easy streaming,” said Stefan Van Engen, VP, content programming and partnerships at  Xumo, a joint venture of Comcast and Charter Communications.

“As engagement levels during primetime rival other major forms of entertainment, it’s clear that FAST is becoming a part of people’s everyday lives,” Van Engen said.

The study also found that pay TV customers watch more FAST than cord-cutters or cord-nevers,

FAST viewers trend younger and more diverse. While 46% of the U.S. adult population is between the ages of 18 and 44 according to the U.S. census, 58% of FAST viewers fall within that range.

Black viewers represent 20% of FAST’s audience, compared to 14% of the U.S. population. Similarly, 23% of FAST viewers have Latino origins, compared to 19% nationally.

FAST viewers over-index on news, movies and crime TV. Together, these genres represent 58% of total viewing hours on Xumo Play, but only account for 11% of total channels.

Nearly 70% of FAST users said they can always find something to watch on free streaming channels.

“There are many myths about FAST which are often bandied about by external onlookers, such as FAST viewers watch because they have no alternatives or they are a less desirable consumer for advertisers,” said Gavin Bridge, chief analyst, FASTMaster Consulting. 

“I am very happy that Xumo has sought to address this via research into who watches FAST, dispelling false narratives with facts and illustrating why FAST continues to grow and needs to be part of any marketer’s toolkit to maximize reach.”

Xumo commissioned FASTMaster Consulting to conduct the study. Responses from 4,000 U.S. adults were collected between the third quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.

“There are many myths about FAST which are often bandied about by external onlookers, such as FAST viewers watch because they have no alternatives or they are a less desirable consumer for advertisers,” said Gavin Bridge, chief analyst, FASTMaster Consulting.

“I am very happy that Xumo has sought to address this via research into who watches FAST, dispelling false narratives with facts and illustrating why FAST continues to grow and needs to be part of any marketer’s toolkit to maximize reach.”

Xumo commissioned FASTMaster Consulting to conduct the study. Responses from 4,000 U.S. adults were collected between the third quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.

Comcast and Charter Communications have been working to proliferate their IP-based video distribution joint venture, Xumo, across the North American cable industry and beyond. 

Xumo is designed to protect cable’s core broadband product and maintain its prominent position on the home screen while gathering all of the rich data that targeted advertisers so crave these days.

In July, Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey told equity analysts that the cable operator will make Xumo its “go-to-market platform for new video sales.”

Xumo enables Charter to continue to offer bundled video options in an app-based format, sans pay TV set-top and truck rolls, existing side-by-side with third-party services including Netflix and Disney Plus. 

LInear cable video isn't necessarily going away immediately. In early December, Charter chief financial officer Jessica Fischer reminded analysts at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York that quadrature amplitude modulation, or QAM, the digital encoding standard for linear cable video, “is going to be with us for a long time.” She added that also while Charter is giving the self-installed Xumo Stream Box to its new video customers, it’s not actively looking to purge legacy Cisco Systems-enabled World Box set-tops from existing Spectrum TV subscribers.

Still, the takeaway was that Charter was in the JV for the long haul, and that this kind of venture was always destined to be a long-term commitment. 

With the traditional pay TV industry in a state of secular decline, in April 2022 America’s two biggest cable operators, Comcast and Charter Communications, launched a joint venture to build an operating system and an entire ecosystem of apps designed to preserve the incumbents’ gateway into the living room and give them a platform to expand into out-of-footprint markets across the U.S. and internationally. 

At the core of Xumo is Comcast's EntertainmentOS, a TVOS rooted in Comcast’s flagship X1 operating system and further developed through the conglomerate’s “Sky Glass” initiative in Europe. 

With the technological foundations already laid by Comcast, Charter committed $900 million to the Xumo TV JV at the time to help expand the platform to handle a new generation of devices and develop additional functionality. 

The Xumo TVOS leverages the Xumo branding established by the eponymous free ad-supported streaming (FAST) service Comcast acquired in 2020 for $100 million. That was at a time when FASTs were still considered a bit of a backwater, where distributors could tap some incremental revenue on cheap library content and re-runs that appealed to the nostalgia of a relatively small niche market of viewers. 

With the new branding, the original Xumo FAST platform is being billed as Xumo Play. 

Xumo TV

Comcast’s previous attempt to establish a TVOS have also given way to the Xumo brand.

Comcast’s Flex set-top boxes. for example, have been replaced by new the Xumo Stream Box as the free streaming gadgets Comcast hands out to its broadband-only customers going forward. Also, the company’s line of XClass TV smart TVs are being replaced by Xumo TV-branded sets manufactured by Hisense, Element and others at retail.

In June the first Xumo-branded Smart TV manufactured by Element Electronics went on sale at Walmart and other retail partners with screen sizes ranging from 43 to 65 inches.

It’s hard to gauge what the consumer response has been so far to the Xumo-powered smart TVs.

As Next TV reported in September, after four months on the market, while those Element sets garnered great reviews, they were being marked down by as much as 34%. 

In the run-up to Christmas, Pioneer became the third TV set manufacturer to introduce sets built on Xumo’s TVOS, launching sets at Best Buy. It’s worth noting that those sets are actually manufactured under license by China’s TCL. 

Xumo Stream Box: The Trojan Horse

Last fall, Charter started doling the puck-sized Xumo Stream Box to new Spectrum TV customers free for one year. Existing Spectrum internet and TV customers can obtain the device via “purchase or for a service fee.” The purchase price is $60.

An October 2023 Next TV review of the Xumo Stream Box plug-in device noted that while lack of second-tier apps was still problematic, “the Stream Box could be the Trojan Horse that ultimately extends Big Cable’s control of the connected living room.”

At SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in late October, Marcien Jenckes, president of the Xumo JV reported that Middletown, New York-based Mediacom Communications will also start distributing the new Xumo Stream Box to its customers in the coming months.  

Comcast made its announcement that it would offer one free Xumo Stream Box to all its broadband customers in early December.

Xumo Play

Meanwhile, the company’s FAST channel lineup has been growing in leaps and bounds throughout 2023, with Xumo Play now fielding more than 300 channels.  

Corporate sibling NBCUniversal has been furnishing Xumo with a wide range of FAST channels built around a broad range of NBCU entertainment, news, sports and Spanish-language content.

While some channels cover genres, the FAST space has plenty of room for others to zoom in on individual series or studio IP ranging from Saturday Night Live and Bravo favorites Top Chef, Real Housewives and Keeping Up With The Kardashians to black-and-white classics, including The Lone Ranger, Lassie and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In terms of news, Xumo has easy access to corporate siblings NBC News Now and Sky News. In July, Comcast absorbed NBC News Now and 19 Xumo-Branded FAST channels into the Xfinity X1 UX platform. 

In terms of sports, in April 2023, Comcast added the NFL Channel to its Xumo Play FAST service, kicking off with extensive coverage this year’s NFL draft. Speedvision roared onto the platform in September. 

There’s even enough room on the dial for hyper-local FAST services like Cox Media Group’s Neighborhood TV, which was recently added to the lineup, covering more than 100 local neighborhoods spread across Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Evolution of Xumo TV: A Timeline

Comcast first rolled its X1 cloud-enabled video platform for Xfinity TV pay TV customers in 2012. The platform quickly became popular among subscribers for its ease of use, incorporating apps from all of the major OTT services at the time. 

Over the years, Comcast and its white-label X1 partners touted the platform as a major churn buster, reporting huge growth in video-on-demand and DVR usage.

In 2014, the third largest cable operator in the U.S., Cox Communications, became the first to license a white-label version of the video operating system, which it branded as Contour. 

In 2015, Canadian cable company Shaw Communications wrote down $55 million it had already invested in developing its own platform and licensed the white-label X1 platform, branded as BlueSky TV. 

In 2016, Canadian operator Rogers Communications came on board, branding its white-label iteration of X1 as Ignite TV. At the time, Rogers wrote off almost $500 million it had already invested in developing its own platform. 

In 2017, Montreal-based Vidéotron licensed the X1 platform for its Helix-branded platform.

In 2019, Comcast released a thin-client offshoot called Xfinity Flex for its growing ranks of customers who only subscribe to broadband. The $5-a-month streaming platform offers access to popular SVOD platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video along with AVOD services like Tubi and, of course, Xumo, plus VOD content for rent through Comcast’s transactional store. 

At that point, it became evident that Comcast had set its sights much higher — that the ecosystem it was building was evolving into a full-blown TVOS destined to compete with the likes of Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV.

But to do that, it would have to be available far beyond the relatively limited footprint of Comcast and its white-label partners. 

The Competitive Field

The Comcast-Charter Xumo TV joint venture landed in a crowded field, with Roku and Amazon Fire TV firmly entrenched in the U.S., and plenty of competition from TV set makers like Samsung, LG, Vizio, not to mention a large installed base of Android TVs as well as its new incarnation as Google TV.  

As Comcast and Charter Communications work to proliferate their IP-based video distribution joint venture, Xumo, across the North American cable industry and beyond, a key selling point has been the ability to lighten the heavy load of carrying traditional video signals on cable networks. 

But it turns out that quadrature amplitude modulation, or QAM, the digital encoding standard for linear cable video, “is going to be with us for a long time,” according to Charter chief financial officer Jessica Fischer.

Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York Tuesday, Fischer reiterated Charter’s now oft-stated claim that Xumo and the new Xumo Stream Box IP-based set-top comprise the go-to video tech standard for the No. 2 sized U.S. cable company going forward. But while Charter is giving the self-installed Xumo Stream Box to its new video customers, it’s not actively looking to purge legacy Cisco-enabled “World Box’ set-tops from existing Spectrum TV subscribers. 

Also read: Xumo Stream Box Reviewed: The First OTT Player From Comcast and Charter’s JV Has a Few Bugs and Limitations, but We Can Still See Potential

“It will take a long time for those boxes to completely turn over,” Fischer said. “I do think that as the QAM video footprint shrinks — as fewer people have traditional set-top boxes — there are going to be efficiencies that we'll get from moving people from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4. And your switched video can be even more efficient as you're serving fewer QAM services. So we’ll shrink the network footprint imprint of QAM video, which is where you're going. But that point at which you say, I have enough penetration of these that I want to go take out the last piece, I think it's likely very far down the line.” 

Fischer’s remarks come after WideOpenWest CEO Theresa Elder said last month that her midsized cable operation is already feeling a QAM weight lifted by having 13% of its new customers take virtual MVPD YouTube TV as their primary video offering. 

Also, last week, Verizon Communications announced it would be delivering an Android TV-based gadget called Fios TV+ to its new Fios linear video subscribers. 

Addressing the broader, er, spectrum of Charter’s business, Fischer continued her company's home run trot following its successful negotiation with Disney in September, during which the media company agreed to make subscription streaming content from Disney Plus and other direct-to-consumer offerings part of Charter's bundled offering. 

“Ultimately, what’s important for our customers is not to pay twice for content,” Fischer said. 

Customers, she added, “can get from us a product where they have access to everything. And it doesn't mean that they have to buy our product, and they have to buy four DTCs that match the channels that they've already paid for.” 

Fischer also addressed the current broadband industry trend in which cable operators are now ceding market share in home internet service to fixed wireless access products offered by Verizon and T-Mobile in huge quarterly chunks. 

Yeah, Charter, which has added only 216,000 high-speed internet customers through the first three quarters of 2023 vs. 1.589 million FWA subscribers for T-Mobile, still thinks the wireless guys will run out of network capacity. 

“In the case of fixed wireless, eventually they’re going to be capacity-limited,” she said. “And, from a product-usage perspective, as data usage continues to increase, I think that we’ll continue to see customers recognizing that that quality does matter. And so we think that we’ll get those customers back. It’s sort of a temporary impact, but that it does have an impact in the short term.”

Fischer's appearance had impact on Charter's Wall Street fortunes -- and not in a good way. The cable operator's stock tumbled Tuesday after she said Charter might lose broadband customers in Q4. 

Free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels are gaining viewers’ interest and increasingly being incorporated into advertisers’ media strategies, according to a new joint report from Comcast Advertising and Xumo, the streaming joint venture between Comcast and Charter Communications.

The report found that nearly half of consumers regularly watch at least one FAST service, with FAST viewers using an average of 1.5 services.

In a survey, 56% of viewers said FAST channels are as good as cable channels.

News is the most-viewed genre on FAST, with a 39% share, followed by crime TV, with 17%; movies, at 10%; action and drama, 5%; sports, 5%; and game shows, 3%. Others accounted for 21%.

“Every month, FAST channels are attracting tens of millions of viewers due to the plethora of high-quality programming including content like local news, niche sports, themed movies, enthusiast TV shows, and more,” Marcien Jenckes, president of Xumo and managing director of Comcast Advertising, said. “The results of this research highlight how the advertising industry is responding to FAST, and their increasing interest in its monetization potential.”

The study found that 84% of FAST ad buyers expect their spending on such services to grow in 2024, with 48% of buyers saying they currently use FAST channels in their media planning and buying.

A majority of advertisers said they use FAST channels because they extend the reach of their campaigns. The study found that 88% of the highest-reaching campaign included FAST channels.

FAST channels already account for about 30% of total ad views.

After devoting more ad spend to the channel in 2023 compared to 2022, 84% of buyers think they will increase their FAST investments even more in 2024. Consumer interest and awareness continue to grow around the medium, which offers an engaging, TV-like experience at no cost — in fact, the study reveals, 94% of FAST impressions are delivered on the TV screen.

“I expect demand for FAST to grow in the coming years as pricing pressure on consumers from subscription streaming services mounts,” Megan Halscheid, VP, PMX Marketplace Intelligence at ad buyer Publicis Media, said. “More and more of the viewing audience will look to FAST to add to their viewing experience, making the format increasingly valuable to ad buyers.” 

DENVER — Comcast and Charter Communications arrived here at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo this week intent on selling their video platform joint venture, Xumo, to the rest of the U.S. cable industry. 

And they already have a taker in Middletown, New York-based Mediacom Communications, which Marcien Jenckes, president of the Xumo JV said Tuesday at an SCTE show-floor presentation, said will start distributing the new Xumo Stream Box to its customers. 

Also Read: Xumo Stream Box Reviewed: The First OTT Player From Comcast and Charter’s JV Has a Few Bugs and Limitations, but We Can Still See Potential

Jenckes offered little details about Mediacom's deployment — like when it’ll start — but he did say: “This is just the beginning with more to come. We’d like to be working with a lot more operators, and we’ll be doing that in the coming months and years."

UPDATED: The Xumo JV released an official statement two days after Jenckes' disclosure, indicating that the Stream Box will be distributed to Mediacom Xtream internet customers "in the coming months." The release didn't say if Mediacom would charge them for the device, and if so, how much.

"Through our partnership with Xumo, we will be able to significantly enhance the value of our broadband services by combining our market-leading speeds with a new world-class streaming experience," said Tapan Dandnaik, Mediacom's senior VP of operations, product strategy and customer experience. "Xumo Stram Box is incredibly versatile and consumer-friendly, and we are excited to be among the first companies to bring this cutting-edge device to market."

The Mediacom announcement comes two weeks after the JV formally introduced the Xumo Stream Box player, which in addition to playing the cable companies’ core pay TV apps — Charter's Spectrum app and the Xfinity Stream TV app — supports all major SVOD services and around 200 apps in all. 

Last week, Light Reading reported that Xumo was in talks with a number of tier 2 and 3 cable operators about offering the Xumo platform to their customers under ad-revenue sharing terms. The NCTC cooperative, which represents hundreds of smaller cable operators, reportedly expressed interest in the JV's proposition. 

The National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC) and other smaller cable interests are looking for ways to provide video to their now mostly broadband-oriented constituency, with rising content costs sapping their profitability and interest in linear video in recent years. 

For its part, Charter said the OTT platform — which is powered by Comcast voice-remote technology — had already replaced its linear set-tops as its “go-to” video platform.

“It’s the primary video box that we are deploying today,” Charter CEO Christopher Winfrey said during Tuesday’s Expo opening session. “It’s been hard for us lately to be excited about our video product. This is about as excited as we've been in 15 years." 

Just a decade ago, when 86% of U.S. homes subscribed to traditional pay TV, Comcast and Charter Communications had undisputed “gateway” control of living rooms in their respective cable footprints via their big, bulky, power-hungry — and very proprietary — DVR set-tops. 

These days, with pay TV penetration down to around 64% and the margins squeezed out of the video business, the nation's top cable operators would just as soon have you stream your video with an app. The better to sell you multi-gigabit-speed broadband, my dear. 

But that doesn’t mean Comcast and Charter want to surrender gateway living room control of video data and advertising monetization to Roku, Amazon and Google. 

Enter the Xumo Stream Box, the first new 4K-capable streaming gadget developed by Comcast and Charter's Xumo TV joint venture. (The box’s debut comes about four months after Best Buy and other retailers debuted Hisense and Element smart TV's powered by Xumo.)

Also Read: Comcast’s Xumo-Branded Smart TVs Are Getting Good Reviews But Are Already Deeply Discounted

Over the long holiday weekend, our cable provider, Charter, sent Stream Box to us for review. 

Initial setup wasn't hard (although we ran into some operational problems later that we'll get into after a short scroll).

We first played around with the copious preloaded apps — all the big SVODs were preinstalled, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, Max, Apple TV Plus, Paramount Plus and Peacock. And QR-code signup made authentication easy enough. 

Foundationed on what is now called the "Comcast Entertainment Operating System," the UX is similar in aesthetic to, as The Verge noted,  Google TV/Android TV with the environment emphasizing live TV from free ad-supported sources. Turn on Stream Box, and you’re immediately tuned into FAST programming from the Xumo Play (we were automatically placed into a presentation of NBC News’s Dateline). 

Scroll below the apps and you roll right into a traditional pay TV-like programming grid, defaulting to Xumo Play on startup. And if that FAST isn't the one you want, Tubi, Pluto TV, Freevee, Plex and other free services are also preloaded and are a click away from filling in that guide with their content. 

The experience isn't too dissimilar from turning on a traditional pay TV set-top, which is probably the idea. 

Since Next TV's L.A. headquarters only takes 400 Gbps-speed internet from Charter (at a pricey $84.99 a month), and not TV, we weren’t able to use the device’s primary app, Spectrum TV. And of course, since we're not in Comcast's footprint, we can't use the Xfinity Stream app, either. These apps would let us enjoy our pay TV subscription without a traditional propriety set-top.

And while the Stream Box’s preinstalled selection of apps is robust, the fact that we couldn't add apps was a major limitation. For example, if we were looking to watch the L.A. Kings’ preseason game Wednesday against Colorado on Bally Sports Plus, we'd be SOL without an alternative streaming gadget because the RSN’s DTC app doesn't come preloaded on Xumo Stream Plus. 

Other notable apps were missing — Stream Box comes loaded with Sling TV, for instance, but not DirecTV Stream. (We can only assume that Charter will upload the apps for its new Lakers and Dodgers DTC services when they go live.)

And as mentioned, we did have a little operational/support trouble out of the gate. On Monday morning, the device booted to an onscreen message reading “Hello/Hola.” We pressed OK on our remote dozens of times. The device kept not reading the remote and shutting down. 

We powered down the device for 30 seconds, and that didn’t solve the problem. 

We spent time live-chatting with tech support, which had us do a factory reset on the gadget. That was a difficult exchange, since the individual providing support wasn’t trained to help customers find the button needed to trigger the reset. It's somewhat hidden in plain sight on the back of the device. He kept saying, “press the button,” and we kept responding, ”what button?”

Nothing worked. Eventually, the rep kicked us up to a higher level of support (we still haven't heard back). However, an hour later, we were able to figure out the problem independently — we rebooted the remote by taking the batteries out for 10 seconds, and everything seemed to work fine. 

It's not particularly shocking or deal-breaking for setup to go a little less than seamlessly for a consumer-grade computer device supplied by telecom companies dabbling in a whole new business. 

Likewise, Xumo Stream Box’s utility shouldn't be gauged by folks like us, who have gotten used to more-developed streaming tech. We cut the cord 10 years ago. And we spent part of our late-night weekend streaming John Schlesinger’s 1975 film Day of the Locust, featuring Donald Sutherland and Karen Black, on a buggy, far-flung AVOD channel that Roku search directed us to. Forget Bally Sports Plus — you will never find this channel in a million iterations on Xumo Stream Box. 

We’re pretty used to finding whatever we want with the vast, developed TVOS platforms, like Roku, whose executives like to remind everyone that the TVOS gadget game has a high barrier of entry at this point. 

Maybe, but controlling the broadband of nearly 63 million U.S. homes between them, Comcast and Charter certainly have a pass to get into the TVOS party if they choose to try. 

A lot of their customers are older and have become used to the traditional grids of X1 and Spectrum Guide. For them, Stream Box — and its old-school hardline Ethernet connection port — will be just fine as an entry point into streaming, and Comcast and Charter can continue to control their customer relationship, data and ad transactions, just as it always has. 

Comcast has understood this at least since 2019, when it began giving away its legacy Xfinity Flex streaming boxes to its broadband-only customers. The Xumo JV said last week that Comcast will soon roll out the Stream Box to these same internet customers. 

Charter's initial business model for the Stream Box is a little more perplexing to us, with the cable company choosing instead to target its video base. It's now selling the device for $60, or a $5-a-month lease, to existing Spectrum TV customers. New customers can use the box free for a year before they start getting dinged monthly lease charges. 

But again, it’s early days. 

As we unplugged the Stream Box Monday and let Roku take our TV back over for Monday Night Football, we wondered about the possibilities. What if, say, during football season, Comcast and Charter cooked up an inexpensive bundle that featured not only access to the three broadcasters that have NFL rights — CBS, NBC and Fox — but also packaged in NFL RedZone, then gave away the box and the bundle to every one of their 63 million-plus broadband homes?

We'd all have access to most of the live NFL without an expensive linear or virtual pay TV subscription. That would be a heck of a customer-retention mechanism that would make folks like us think thrice about cutting wireline broadband in favor of cheap fixed wireless access.

And the Stream Box could also be a “gateway drug” to return to traditional pay TV. That big Monday Night Football game on ESPN? Maybe throw the ol’ 16-digit credit-card number Charter’s way so you can finally use that Spectrum Guide app and watch the game live.

Comcast and Charter Communications’s Xumo joint venture has just spawned a brand new gadget, the Xumo Stream Box, and Charter is now making the device available for its Spectrum customers. 

The streaming player will also be available “soon” for Comcast's Xfinity Internet customers, said an announcement put out Wednesday by the JV, as it was getting ready to host an evening New York launch party. 

Something else new: The Xumo JV is now calling the TVOS that powers its gadgets the “Comcast Entertainment Operating System.”

The Xumo Stream Box supports the primary pay TV apps for Charter and Comcast, the Spectrum TV App and the Xfinity app, respectively, as well as the Xumo Play service. 

The device also supports most major streaming apps, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney Plus, Max, Peacock, Tubi, Pluto TV “and more,” said Xumo.

Xumo said it’s handing out one Xumo Stream Box to new Spectrum TV customers free for one year. Existing Spectrum internet and TV customers can obtain the device via “purchase or for a service fee.” The purchase price is $60. 

The debut of the gadget follows the launch several months ago of “Xumo TV” smart TVs manufactured by Element and Hisense, and sold via retail channels including Best Buy. (Xumo TVs manufactured in China under the Pioneer brand were just announced last week, as well.)

The launch follows a public proclamation made by Charter CEO Christopher Winfrey over the summer that Xumo would soon be the "go-to" video platform for his cable company. 

“When we started Xumo, we set out with the ambition to take the decades of entertainment experience and technical innovation from Comcast and Charter and build a complete entertainment experience that breaks down the streaming silos and makes TV easy again," Xumo president Marcien Jenckes said in a statement. 

Things had grown kind of quiet with Comcast and Charter's big Xumo TV joint venture, but there was activity Thursday when it was revealed that a third product line of Xumo-powered sets will hit Best Buy store shelves in November. 

Four size iterations (43-, 50-, 55- and 65-inch) of 4K smart TVs wearing the Pioneer brand and featuring Xumo's TVOS will join Xumo sets from Element and Hisense, which debuted at retail over the spring and summer. 

Best Buy has already started taking pre-orders for the Pioneer sets, pricing the 43-inch model at $269.99 and the 65-incher at $499.99.

Also read: Comcast-Charter JV’s Xumo-Branded Smart TVs Ready to Hit the Shelves of Walmart ... and Other Retailers

“Our partnership with Best Buy represents a great step forward for consumer choice. Soon, consumers looking for an affordable and innovative smart TV will have a compelling new option in Pioneer Xumo TVs,” said Stephanie Cassi, Senior VP of sales and marketing for the Xumo JV, in a statement. “We’re focused on removing the complexity that’s come with the rise of streaming, enabling consumers to get back to enjoying their TV experience.”

Comcast and Charter are trying to take on incumbents Roku, Amazon, Google and Samsung in the global quest for streaming gateway OS control of the global living room. 

It's hard to tell how it's going. 

As Next TV reported Tuesday, Element and Hisense Xumo sets have been deeply discounted, with a 65-inch Dolby Vision-enabled TV powered by the Xumo TV OS and manufactured by Element reduced 34% to $329.99 on retailer Meijer's online storefront.

As we also noted, consumer reviews of the Xumo sets have been strong. 

Also notable: the Pioneer brand is no longer manufactured by Japan's Pioneer Electronics, which now appears to be licensing the brand, at least for smart TVs, to China's TCL. 

Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey told equity analysts Friday that the cable operator will make the fruit of its TVOS joint venture with Comcast, Xumo, its "go-to-market platform for new video sales." 

The voice-enabled Xumo video operating system is rooted in Comcast's X1 platform. Earlier in July, the JV started rolling out 55- and 65-inch Xumo-powered smart TVs in retail locations including Meijer. 

Charter said it will begin deploying its own Xumo streaming devices in "late 2023." 

Also Read: Charter Second-Quarter Net Falls as 189,000 Subscribers Cut the Cord

Charter lost only 189,000 linear pay TV customers in the second quarter, a rate far below peers including Comcast, which bled 543,000 traditional pay TV souls over the same period. 

“We’re losing the least amount of video customers of any of our peers and competitors,” Winfrey declared. 

Still, with 14.1 million residential customers remaining in what he called a "devalued" linear pay TV market, Winfrey conceded that Charter is close to "indifference" in regards to chasing down more traditional TV subscribers in a cord-cutting era. 

Also Read: Charter Set to Surpass Comcast as the Biggest Remaining Linear Pay TV Supplier in America

Xumo will allow Charter to continue to offer bundled video options in an app-based format, sans pay TV set-top and truck rolls, existing side-by-side with third-party services including Netflix and Disney Plus. 

This will fit into a new more flexible video strategy for Charter and its Spectrum TV products, enabling the cable company to offer smaller, lower cost video options to customers.

Earlier in July, for example, Charter announced that it would end the practice of forcing base-tier pay TV customers to take pricey regional sports networks if they didn't want to pay for them. 

NBCUniversal said it will be launching more than 20 new free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels that will initially be available on Xumo and Amazon Freevee this summer.

The streaming channels will be built around a broad range of NBCU entertainment, news, sports and Spanish-language content, from Saturday Night Live and Bravo favorites Top Chef, Real Housewives and Keeping Up With The Kardashians to black-and-white classics including The Lone Ranger, Lassie and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The flotilla of FASTs represents a change in strategy for NBCU, which eliminated the free tiers of its Peacock streaming service, which has counted on shows like SNL and Bravo programming to attract viewers.

Like other major media companies, NBCU has been losing money by trying to hoard its programming for its own direct-to-consumer business and is flailing for additional ways to generate revenue from its library of content.

With consumers facing streaming subscription shock, FAST channels have been multiplying. Warner Bros. Discovery has been moving content onto FAST channels with Roku and Tubi. Paramount and Fox own FAST platforms Pluto TV and Tubi, respectively.

“NBCUniversal is in the enviable position of owning a vast array of iconic shows that are not part of our broadcast and cable networks to curate a valuable portfolio of FAST channels,” said Matt Schnaars, president, NBCUniversal Content Distribution. “These channels, with content from some of the most recognizable brands in television, will find an immediate audience in the growing FAST ecosystem, and create value for NBCUniversal, our distribution partners and our advertisers.” 

Added NBCUniversal president and chief revenue officer, global distribution Belinda Menendez: “In this ever-growing entertainment landscape, we are proud to be a company that offers an extensive library of beloved film and TV series to fulfill the appetite of every viewer. With decades worth of titles from various genres, audiences will now have more ways to find our popular content through this wide assortment of hand-selected FAST channels.”

NBCU already has a number of FAST channels, mostly carrying national news and local news from its NBC and Telemundo stations, as well as Sky News International.

“Xumo’s NBCUniversal existing FAST channels have always been top performers on Xumo Play and this new offering will bring more quality programming from networks like NBC, Bravo, NBC Sports and Telemundo to our growing catalog of content,” said Stefan Van Engen, VP, content programming and partnerships at Xumo, a joint venture of NBCU parent Comcast and Charter Communications. “Additionally, by providing NBCUniversal with tools and services to bring these channels to other platforms, we can help this great content reach even more audiences.”

“Freevee has grown into a destination for a vast selection of FAST channels, offering customers a wide selection of programming to stream from nearly any device including the Freevee app, Fire TV, and Prime Video,” said Ryan Pirozzi, Head of Amazon Freevee. “We’re honored to be a launch partner for the full slate of FAST Channels coming from the NBCUniversal portfolio and can’t wait for Freevee customers to enjoy nearly 50 new channels, offering endless hours of lean back content to enjoy.”

Here’s how NBCU describes its new channels:

Bravo Vault: From Shahs of Sunset to Flipping Out, Bravo Vault immerses you in all the high-sheen content and drama you love with our rotating content library.  

E! Keeping Up: Keep up with each breakup and breakdown from the first family of reality TV, the Kardashians/Jenners. The E! Keeping Up Vault has the episodes and spin offs that created an empire. Re-live it all now.  

Million Dollar Listing Vault: Dig deep into the many seasons of Million Dollar Listing from L.A. to N.Y., S.F. to Miami. Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing vault introduces you to the best of real estate and all the deals and drama.  

Oxygen True Crime Archives: Oxygen True Crime Archives is your home for deep dives into infamous cases and binge-watching original series. True crime, all day, every day.  

Real Housewives Vault: Revisit the Real Housewives that launched the iconic franchise, showcasing the glitz, glamour, and drama of the reality show’s wealthy female stars.  

SNL Vault: See your favorite characters, sketches, and hosts in an array of Saturday Night Live clips.

Top Chef Vault: Bravo’s Top Chef Vault has a rotating library to catch up on and learn the latest in sous-vide, gastronomy and more from the ultimate food competition show.  

American Crimes: Explore the dark side of the American dream and life behind bars, featuring award-winning series American Greed and Lockup.

GolfPass: GolfPass brings together thousands of lessons from the game’s biggest instructors, exclusive series, Golf Channel news and features, and much more.   

NBC Sports: Stay updated on the latest sports news with entertaining talk programs, including Premier League Stories and The Dan Patrick Show.  

Historias de Amor: Delightful romantic comedies and emotionally charged dramatic sagas of love and revenge. Based on authentic storytelling, offering familiar content for the bilingual U.S. Latino population.   

Lo Mejor de Telemundo: Discover recent fan favorites and revisit hits from Telemundo, including dramas, reality, and novelas, featuring popular series such as El Caso Cerrado, El Domo del Dinero, and more.   

Noticias Telemundo Ahora: 24/7 Spanish-language news channel from the U.S. Hispanic community’s most trusted news source, featuring breaking news, interviews with leading newsmakers, live reports from major cities across the country and lifestyle content.

Telemundo al Día: Offering the latest in entertainment and sports news. Content includes shows like Al Rojo Vivo, La Mesa Caliente, Telemundo Deportes and more.   

Rotten Tomatoes: The Rotten Tomatoes channel is the one-stop source for movie and TV fans, with fresh takes on favorite scenes, previews of blockbusters, and weekly content highlights.   

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Emmy-winning anthology series created by Alfred Hitchcock features suspenseful and delightfully twisting mysteries.    

Bad Girls Club: Watch as seven outrageously bold, brazenly misbehaved women attempt to transform their reckless ways. Can they change — or will chaos rule?  

Lassie: Join Lassie, the Martin family’s beloved canine, and her human and animal companions as they embark on adventures. Learn why dogs truly are a man’s best friend in this Emmy-winning series.  

Little House on the Prairie: Set in the late 1800s, the Ingalls family pack up their belongings and venture out west in search for new life in the new land. Starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, watch this family of five adjust to their new home in Plum Creek, on the plains of Minnesota. 

Made in Chelsea: Follow the sensational lives, loves, and careers of eight high society friends who live in London’s most affluent neighborhoods.   

Murder, She Wrote: Join mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (played by legend Angela Lansbury), as she solves crimes in this Emmy-winning drama.   

Saved by the Bell: Share the inventive schemes and mischievous dreams of these tight-knit friend groups. Watch them grow from Bayside High in Saved by the Bell to after graduation in The College Years, and later with the next generation in The New Class.

TNBC: Rediscover these laugh-out-loud fan-favorite sitcoms from Teen NBC. These timeless stories about the highs and lows of growing up are relatable for any audience, young or old. Series include: Punky Brewster, City Guys, Hang Time and Major Dad.  

The Lone Ranger: The masked cowboy known as the Lone Ranger, and his trusty accomplice Tonto, fight for justice in the Wild West. 

Universal Action: Buckle up and hold on tight! Helicopters, fast cars, and fight scenes are packed into this channel. Here you’ll find riveting shows that are sure to get your heart pumping and adrenaline flowing, such as Magnum P.I., Knight Rider, The A-Team and many others.  

Universal Crime: Mystery, suspense, and action culminate in these notable drama series. From the scene of the crime to the courtroom, follow along with some of your favorite stars as they fight for justice to be served. Series include: Columbo, Kojak and The Rockford Files. 

Universal Westerns: Cowboys, gunslingers, and outlaws roam the Wild West in these series. Get swept away by these classic tales of heroism and family adventure set against scenic frontier backdrops, such as The Virginian and Tales of Wells Fargo.  

Universal Monsters: Blood-sucking vampires, stitched-together monsters, and howling werewolves. From iconic monster movies to modern classics, these films are guaranteed to give you goosebumps, which include titles such as Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man.

Free ad-supported streaming TV service Xumo Play said it is bringing back its annual Game Show Week, starting Sunday.

Game Show Week features daily programming marathons of content from game-show based channels and series on Xumo including Family Feud, Buzzr, The Price Is Right, Wipeout Xtra, Fear Factor and The Celebrity Name Game channel.

Some of the episodes are being shown on a FAST service for the first time.

“Game Show Week is among our top programming in terms of total hours consumed, and it remains a fan-favorite where viewers delight in playing-along-at-home, or just leaning back to enjoy the very best of classic game show content,” Fern Feistel, VP of marketing and content operations at Xumo, said. “It offers hundreds of hours of beloved entertainment across 13 dedicated channels, all thoughtfully curated to showcase some of the most celebrated episodes and epic moments in game show history.”

Each night during the week, the Xumo Game Show Channel will highlight well-known hosts in primetime, with Magic Johnson from Magic Johnson’s All Star Slam-N-Jam on Monday, Fern Britton of For What It’s Worth on Tuesday, Jay Leno of You Bet Your Life on Wednesday, Meredith Vieira of 25 Words or Less on Thursday and Howie Mandel of Deal or No Deal on Friday.

Over the weekend the channel will feature a Food Fight Marathon of Culinary Genius vs. Iron Chef.

Xumo is a joint venture of Comcast and Charter Communications. 

Xumo, the streaming joint venture kicked off last year by U.S. cable giants Comcast and Charter Communications, is licensing its TVOS to China's Element Electronics to power smart TVs for the U.S. market. 

Introduced at CES 2023 in Las Vegas this week, Element Xumo TVs will ship domestically sometime later in 2023, with as-yet announced price points and size configurations. 

It's the first major Xumo announcement since Comcast and Charter branded their JV in early November, naming it after the 11-year-old Xumo FAST service that Comcast acquired three years ago for $100 million. 

Xumo is based on OS technology developed for Comcast's X1 and Xfinity Flex pay TV platforms. Charter has pledged a $900 million multiyear financial commitment to back the Xumo JV, announced in April 2021 and intended to transition Comcast's pay TV UX into the broader global retail gateway OS market. 

Notably, the Comcast press release announcing the Element deal said the new TV's will join a Xumo portfolio that includes XClass TVs. These are sets manufactured by Hisense under Comcast's XClass brand name, powered by Xumo and sold exclusively at Walmart. These sets, which have been unavailable recently, will be rebranded with the "Hisense Xumo TV" moniker later this year, according to sources familiar with Xumo's plans. 

As for Element, it has a manufacturing facility in Winnsboro, S.C., and already ships TVs powered by the dominant TVOS that Xumo is trying to usurp, Roku.  

“We look forward to building our brand partnership and providing consumers access to amazing technology and content at an incredible value," said Vlad Kazhdan, president of Element Electronics, in a statement.

“Element and Xumo share a common vision of delivering consumers premium, innovative entertainment experiences at a tremendous value,” added Xumo President Marcien Jenckes.

Comcast and Charter Communications will use the name of the former's 11-year-old FAST platform, Xumo, to brand their recently announced streaming joint venture. 

With the decision, the FAST platform Xumo will be branded as Xumo Play. And Flex, the the 4K streaming boxes Comcast hands out for free to its broadband-only customers, will now be branded as the Xumo Stream Box. Meanwhile, XClass TV, the line Hisense-manufactured smart TVs powered by Comcast's TVOS and sold exclusively at Walmart, will be branded as Xumo TV.  

Also read: Has Comcast's XClass TV Drive Stalled Nearly One Year After Launch?

Both Xumo Stream Box and Xumo TV are powered by Comcast operating software rooted in the operator's flagship X1 video platform. The JV says that connected TV devices powered by this OS will start appearing on the shelves of Walmart in late 2023, and they'll also be distributed by Comcast and Charter. 

Charter has committed $900 million to the joint venture paid out over multiple years. The JV not only includes the erstwhile Flex and XClass TV, but Xumo Play, the free ad-supported streaming service, and a JV itself between the Meredith Corp's Viant Technology unit and Panasonic, founded in 2011, and acquired in February 2020 by Comcast for $100 million. 

“Since 2011, the Xumo brand has connected with millions of customers across the country, establishing itself as a leader in the free ad-supported TV industry for the innovative ways it delivers content to its users,” said Marcien Jenckes, president of Xumo, in a statement. “The new Xumo will bring industry leading streaming and aggregation technology nationwide through its expanding content, product line up, and retailer relationships.” ■

Ad-supported streaming platform Xumo said it launched two channels in time for trick or treat season.

The Halloween Horror channel will feature mostly AVOD-exclusive movies, including turtles such as The Gravedigger, Those Who Walk Away, Hideout, While We Sleep, and Homebound.

A Monsters & Nightmares channel offers title from Magnolia Pictures' SVOD service through the end of the month. Titles include All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst and The Oxford Murders with Elijah Wood.

"As we continue to bring AVOD-exclusive programming as well as best-in-class, licensed content to viewers, these channels fortify our line-up of premium, themed movies for the season," Fumo VP of marketing and content operations Fern Feistel said. "Thriller and horror-themed movies have always been a popular genre on Xumo and adding to that library with two Halloween-specific channels this month is an important focal point that will draw in an enormous audience with ideally timed content."

Xumo is part of the streaming joint venture created by Comcast and Charter Communications. ■

Blockchain could play a “critical” role in the ad-tech business, providing needed transparency and helping smaller companies counter the walled gardens of advertising behemoths like Google, Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook said during a session at NYC TV Week’s Advanced Advertising Summit Monday.

“Blockchain is going to play a critical role in advertising,” Vanderhook said, adding that one of the big concerns for ad-tech companies at present is whether publishers are getting paid properly. 

“When you think of the blockchain and putting the payment on the blockchain for the publisher, you can now have full transparency up the chain on who got paid what,” Vanderhook continued. “I think for advertisers, who we represent, they want trans to make sure we deliver the dollar to the publisher that was supposed to get there. So I think the blockchain is going to deliver transparency in spades, which is going to be an enormous thing.”

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

He also saw the currency as a means to return some control to smaller companies dealing with huge behemoths like Google for their ad revenue.  

“The blockchain can also help to counter walled gardens, big walled gardens like Google who run centralized ad exchanges,” Vanderhook said. “You’re basically at their mercy to get your check 60 days later. And they can change the impressions, they can change the dollar amount, there’s no real control. I think there is something around the blockchain in creating a decentralized advertising service that the whole Open Web can tap into that no one controls.”

Vanderhook admitted it will probably be a while until something like that becomes reality, but “I just feel like there’s there there.”

Vanderhook has made his living anticipating the future, with varying results. A co-founder of FAST pioneer Xumo with his brother Chris in 2011, the two sold the company to Comcast in 2019, just 12 days before the pandemic hit. 

“I looked at my brother and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it was the first time in life we’ve ever been lucky,’ ” Vanderhook joked. “And about a month later we spoke to the CEO [and], he said, ‘Man, you won’t believe it, revenue is up 400%, usage is up 500%,’ and they were off and running. Still not lucky.’ ”  

But that same year the two brothers repurchased another startup they founded and earlier sold to Time Inc., ad-tech firm Viant. The Vanderhooks bought back Viant for about $50 million in total valuation. When they took the company public in 2021, Viant had a $1.5 billion valuation and raised $286 million. The stock has since fallen sharply — it is down about 92% from its closing price on February 12, 2021, the date of its IPO, but Vanderhook added the offering served its purpose, providing the capital needed to move the business forward. 

“We got the capital and have been investing in R&D and the business is off and running and doing great,“ he said. ”The stock price is still in the tank, but the business fundamentals are great.”

Xumo was one of the first FAST services, but now it appears to be one of the hottest segments in the industry. Vanderhook said he and his brother based Xumo on the Spotify model, basically offering something for free with ads and driving those customers to the paid, ad-free service.  

Now companies that have held out from offering ads — Netflix and Disney Plus — are planning to launch ad-supported versions. Vanderhook said it could have a huge impact on revenue for both companies. 

“In the end, free users create who you go after to create paid subscribers,” Vanderhook said. “And free is the cheapest way to pull somebody into a new service. Anyone who’s in growth marketing knows that if you roll free content, you’re going to get a lot more people to tune in. That’s a lot easier and more cost-efficient than getting people to sign up for a free trial of a brand new service.” 

As far as the revenue impact, Vanderhook noted that FuboTV generates about $7 in ad-supported revenue each month. For Roku, it’s $3.75 per month and Vizio generates about $2 in monthly ad revenue. 

“This is huge when you compare it to $15 a month for just a subscription,” Vanderhook said. “It has the ability to substantially lift their revenue.”

Vanderhook also is encouraged about the rise in interactivity on the internet, but added he feels the industry has only scratched the surface. The ability to manipulate video and place interactivity over content, for applications such as live gambling, is a step toward realizing the technology’s true potential, he added. 

“We’re still pushing videos, pre-produced and edited in a flat file and pushing it out to people, which is what linear TV created,” Vanderhook said. “It’s a great experience, but it could be so much more.”

On the interactive advertising side, Vanderhook said among the hurdles to overcome are “cookies,” the small pieces of data that are used to identify a user. With connected TVs, he says cookies are the reason that ads are duplicated so often. And luckily, Viant's specialty is delivering targeted ads without cookies. That cookie-less future is where Vanderhook believes the whole ad business is moving. 

“We think cookies are a really big problem,” he said. “When you get into CTV, we all have the same experience in streaming, everyone sees the same advertisement over and over again. Why is that? There’s no user ID for a DSP like us to stop buying the ad. When that ad request comes across, it looks like a new user every time, even though it's the same one. So, solving identity in these cookie-less environments like connected TV, that’s what we set out to do, that’s what we accomplished — our ID works 90% of the time across the hit stream.“ ▪️

Free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) services are all the rage as content providers and distributors look for any way to squeeze profits from streaming video, and though there is a danger that too much of a good thing could once again saturate the market, Barclays Group believes the segment could end up taking share away from more traditional streamers.

The number of FAST services has grown significantly over the past two to three years with services from traditional media giants (Peacock, Tubi, Pluto, Xumo, Vudu and Crackle), hardware vendors — (Freevee, Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels) and independents (Plex, Kanopy, Hoopla) and more are on the way. Warner Bros. Discovery has said that it plans to launch a FAST service at some point in the future as has Android TV.

Also: More Scripps Channels Go FAST in Deal with Vizio

Low barriers to entry and lower costs for content — most of the services offer classic TV series and older movies — make FASTs attractive to content creators and distributors alike. But in a research note, Barclays Group media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar asked, despite those plusses, is FAST sustainable?

One drawback is the lack of differentiation of content between the services. In his report, Venkateshwar noted that content overlap for FAST services is more than 80%, compared to 3.9% for Disney Plus and 9% for HBO Max.

Also: FAST Usage Was Up 9 points in the First Five Months of 2022

What FAST services lack in content differentiation they apparently more than make up for in availability. In his report, Venkateshwar noted that FAST services may have higher penetration than any single premium subscription service because of the breadth of their distribution, through smart or connected TVs and other means. Smart/connected TV penetration is 87% in the U.S. and 40% globally, and every connected TV has access to the full suite of FAST services as well as streaming offerings like YouTube and TikTok.

Availability is Key

“Access to premium services on the other hand is based on penetration of SVOD services and consumer propensity to pay for multiple services,” Venkateshwar wrote. Although the average U.S. household subscribes to 4.7 streaming services, he added, the one with the highest penetration (Netflix) is at 56% while overall streaming penetration is 85%. 

“This implies that the mix within this SVOD basket consumed by the average household is not constant and there is a lot of switching based on content release schedules,” he continued, adding that it also accounts for the high churn levels of most SVOD services. 

While engagement for individual FAST services is below that of their SVOD counterparts, combined they account for more minutes than subscription offerings. Barclays, citing Nielsen research for one week this year (July 25), noted that together Tubi (4.4 billion minutes), Roku Channel (3.5 billion minutes), Pluto (5.1 billion minutes) and Peacock (3.5 billion minutes), edged out Amazon Prime Video (15.1 billion minutes) and was nearly twice that of Disney Plus (9.6 billion minutes) and almost three times that of HBO Max (6 billion minutes). That gap could narrow further as awareness for FAST offerings increases. That’s also where aggregation services like Android TV, Roku, and Comcast’s Flex offering could become a factor, Venkateshwar wrote. 

Also: David Zaslav and the [Streaming] Deathly Hallows  

“With television viewership increasingly determined by aggregation services and the still growing clutter of thousands of titles across streaming services, we believe content choices are likely to be increasingly determined by the recommendation engines that can look across streaming services,” Venkateshwar wrote. “However, with every major recommendation engine having its own affiliated free ad supported streaming service (Comcast Flex-Peacock, Xumo, Vudu, Android TV — new Channels service, YouTube, Amazon Fire — Freevee, Roku — Roku Channel etc.), content on these services is likely to feature as prominently on TV screens as premium content for SVOD services.”

It’s All About Engagement

Ad revenue for FAST services is still low. According to Barclays, the top three services ad-revenue-wise are Pluto TV ($1.2 billion), Peacock ($1.16 billion) and Tubi ($653 million). And though upcoming AVOD products from Netflix and Disney Plus could further cut into that ad revenue pie, Venkateshwar wrote that it may all come down to overall engagement. 

Also: Is Engagement More Valuable Than Subscribers? 

“One of the most important drivers of engagement however may be the recommendation engine sitting outside these services,” the analyst wrote. “This in turn could turn streaming advertising workflow to a process not that dissimilar to search where the recommendation engine ultimately determines how GRPs are allocated across services, potentially in return for a share of ad revenues.” 

Walled Gardens and Open Spaces

Venkateshwar continued that this could lead to a split in the overall streaming ad ecosystem, similar to what has happened in the digital advertising arena. He estimated that today about 34% of time spent online is with so-called “walled gardens” like Facebook, Twitter, Snap and Pinterest, while the remainder is spent on the open Web, which also accounts for about 40% of ad revenue.

Over time, FAST could act more like the open Web, Venkateshwar wrote, while SVOD is more like a walled garden. 

“This process may result in advertising on these free streaming services being lower-priced fungible programmatic inventory, with CPMs being more comparable to services like YouTube and TikTok,” Venkateshwar wrote. 

According to the analyst, walled gardens are more likely to have CPMs that resemble television because they would have more control over ad delivery and measurement. But he added that across both segments the availability of inventory will most likely be determined by recommendation engines, which could result in lower ad margins. 

Still, Venkateshwar believes FAST services will become a larger category, albeit more fragmented than SVOD or AVOD spaces, making their success more dependent on aggregators. And though the same holds true for traditional SVOD and AVOD offerings like Netflix and Disney Plus, they have considerably more brand awareness as well as their own content franchises that should help drive engagement.  

“With Android TV launching its own free streaming service, Comcast already having Xumo/Vudu/Peacock, Amazon having Freevee and Roku having Roku Channel, we wouldn’t be surprised if independent free ad-supported streaming services like Pluto and Tubi, which have among the highest engagement today, end up declining in importance and consumption skews towards services owned by aggregators,” Venkateshwar wrote. “Therefore, we may see a significant skew in revenues across ad-supported streaming services over time, focused on a small set of services despite broader fragmentation in free service availability.” ■

Xumo said it made a two-year exclusive deal bringing movie titles from Magnolia Pictures to the free ad-supported streaming television market for the first time.

A new Magnolia "first on FAST" title will launch nearly every month and stream for a 90-day window, the companies said.

Xumo, part of the streaming joint venture formed by Comcast and Charter Communications, said it also made deals with Oscilloscope and Brainstorm Media to bring their content exclusively to FAST channels. 

"Xumo is always looking to showcase intelligent, engaging programming to create a dynamic and unique FAST experience," said Anthony Layser, VP of content partnerships and programming at Xumo. 

"Magnolia is known for that kind of storytelling and we are thrilled that Xumo will be the first FAST platform carrying these great Magnolia titles, as well as other smart and inventive exclusives from providers like Oscilloscope and Brainstorm Media," Layser said. "Millions of viewers turn to Xumo to discover and enjoy thousands of great free movies, and these partnerships build out a film library not available on other FAST services."

Some of the titles that will be streaming under the deal include Dogman, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I am and Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band.

"Being able to expand upon our existing relationship with Xumo and usher our content onto their FAST channels enables audiences to enjoy a unique entertainment experience that is singular to the Xumo platform," said Jeff Cuban, COO of Mark Cuban Companies Entertainment Properties. "Xumo stands as our first exclusive partner to premiere our titles on their FAST platform, which further strengthens the presence of Magnolia in the streaming space and bolsters the influence of our critically acclaimed catalog." ■

Comcast-owned streaming service Xumo said it signed a U.S. distribution and licensing deal with MPI Media and has launched two exclusive channels, one featuring episodes of Family Affair, the other episodes of Girls Next Door and its two spin-off series.

“Xumo currently features 40 single series channels that drove over 15 percent of total hours streamed in Q1 2022 alone, and represents an important, fast-growing category on our service,” noted Stefan Van Engen, senior VP, programming and partnerships at Xumo.  

Also: ‘Barney & Friends’ Gets Dedicated Streaming Channel on Xumo

“Delivering more exclusive content with single series channels like these, helps us to continue delighting and engaging millions of our viewers every day with both beloved and well-known TV shows that they can watch for free, available only on Xumo and through our select distribution partners,” Van Engen said.

The Family Affair Channel is running the 136 episodes of seasons one through five of Family Affair, which stared Sebastian Cabot and Brian Keith. The sitcom aired on CBS from 1966 to 1971. The channel also has 30 episodes of season one of The Mothers in Law. The channel launched July 1.

The Girls Next Door Channel has 88 episodes of season one through six featuring Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends. The series ran on E! From 2005 to 2010.  It also has 35 episodes from four seasons of Kendra and 18 episodes from two seasons of Holly’s World.

Xumo, acquired by Comcast in 2020, will become part of a streaming joint venture being started by Comcast and Charter Communications. ■

Former Hallmark Channel head Bill Abbott’s GAC Media launched its first free ad-supported streaming television channel, Great American Adventures, on Comcast’s Xumo platform.

The channel focuses on Americana, with 500 hours of scripted and unscripted programming highlighting subjects including Southern cooking and do-it-yourself projects.

Series on the channel include Southern Fried Skinnyfied with Paige Duke and Patti LaBelle’s Place.

Also: Bill Abbott’s GAC Plans DTC App With Original Content, Social Functions

Abbott launched GAC Media by buying two cable networks and rebranding them as GAC Family and GAC Living in 2021. GAC Family follows the Hallmark playbook, featuring original holiday movies and family-friendly series. The new streaming network gets GAC Media into the fast-growing connected TV space, which is attracting viewers and advertisers.

“The launch of Great American Adventures is a new growth milestone for GAC Media as the company expands into the FAST TV sector,” Erin McIlvain, chief officer, distribution and content strategy at GAC Media, said. “This new partnership with Xumo will broaden the viewing ecosystem for our content allowing us to reach a new audience while further serving our existing fans with entertaining programming that celebrates Americana.”

Xumo was acquired by Comcast in 2020 and features 250 channels of free premium programming.

“Great American Adventures is a perfect fit as a FAST channel on Xumo,” senior VP of programming and partnerships Stefan Van Engen said. “It’s always the right time to enjoy and celebrate the kind of everyday American traditions we all know and love. Great American Adventures delivers the high-caliber content that allows us to engage millions of viewers across our network.”

Xumo will become part of the joint venture Comcast and Charter Communications are starting to create a new streaming platform. ■

The Elvis Presley Channel has launched on platforms including LG Channels, Amazon’s Freevee, Vizio, Sling, Xumo, Plex and Local Now.

The channel, created in partnership by Elvis Presley Enterprises and ABG Entertainment, with Cinedigm, features the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in films and specials, as well as series and lifestyle programming.

Original series are in development.

"We are thrilled for fans to immerse themselves in Elvis' world with the launch of The Elvis Presley Channel," said Matt Abruzzo, senior director - brand management, entertainment, Authentic Brands Group (ABG), owner of Elvis Presley Enterprises, LLC. "The Elvis fandom is incredibly passionate, and when it comes to serving enthusiastic fan bases, no one does it better than Cinedigm."

Cinedigm announced plans to launch the channel last year.   ■

Streaming service Xumo said it will launch a streaming channel dedicated to iconic purple dinosaur Barney on June 30.

The channel will feature eight full seasons of Barney & Friends, co-starring Baby Bop, BJ and Riff as well as their young human pals.

The new channel will arrive in time for kids’ summer vacation from school, when Xumo will launch its Family Adventure Month.

Xumo is adding eight family-friendly movies to its library in June and July. The films are Push with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning, The Karate Kid with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, Miracles from Heaven with Jennifer Garner, The 5th Wave with Chloe Grace Moretz, The Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Starman with Jeff Bridges, Gods of Egypt with Gerard Butler and Chadwick Bozeman and A River Runs Through It starring Brad Pitt.

Also: Channel Flipping Makes a Comeback

“Xumo’s Family Adventure Month places an emphasis on entertainment that everyone in the family can stream together, and is ideally timed for the start of summer break,” said Fern Feistel, senior VP, marketing and content operations at Xumo. “Launching eight new movies and a dedicated Barney & Friends channel builds upon an already vast library of popular Kids & Family content that’s especially in demand during the summer months.”

Xumo, acquired by Comcast in 2020, will become part of a streaming joint venture being started by Comcast and Charter Communications. ■

Comcast paid $100 million for Xumo in February 2020, amid the shopping bonanza for ad-supported streaming services that occurred a few years back. 

But unlike Paramount's Global's $340 million purchase of Pluto TV and Fox's $440 million Tubi buy, we haven't heard much --nay, anything at all -- about international expansion for Xumo.

That is, until now. Sort of. 

Comcast has struck a deal with Rogers Communications to put a customized version of the Xumo app on the Canadian cable operator's Comcast-designed Ignite TV and Ignite SmartStream video systems. 

Rogers still has more than 2 million TV/video subscribers, and the cable operator's Ignite TV is based on Comcast's X1 platform.

Xumo offers more than 200 digital channels of free, including Radio Canada, CBC News, Xumo Free Movies, ABC News Live, The Johnny Carson Show, Free Action Movies, America’s Test Kitchen, beIN Sports Xtra, batteryPop.

Comcast said Xumo had 24 million active users back in 2020, but the No. 1 U.S. cable company has been close to the vest about the platform since. 

The free-to-consumer service is one of the lynchpins in the video service JV being developed by Comcast and Charter. 

“The launch of the Xumo app on Rogers Ignite TV and Ignite SmartStream is an important milestone in our growing app portfolio,” noted Chris Hall, senior VP of product at Xumo. “Canadian viewers will now have access to even more free programming directly from Rogers, and it will be seamlessly integrated within the experience to make search and discovery easy.”

Streaming TV service Xumo said it was launching five new channels as it pressed start on its second annual Game Show Week.

Game Show Week on Xumo, which is owned by Comcast but will become part of Comcast’s broadband joint venture with Charter Communications, started Monday and runs through May 22.

Added to the Xumo lineup are Buzzr, and channels featuring episodes of Fear Factor, The Price is Right, Supermarket Sweep and Wipeout.

“Game show entertainment is a genre not all FAST services have a lot of, but it is one of our fastest growing categories in terms of hours consumed. With our annual Game Show Week, we’re turning the spotlight on this popular genre with even more newly launched channels and beloved game shows that will bring out the friendly competitor in us all,” stated Fern Feistel, senior VP, marketing and content operations at Xumo. “Whether you play along at home, or lean back and enjoy this classic programming, Game Show Week appeals to the widest cross section of viewers and is back again this year by popular demand.”

For Game Show week, Xumo will have a total of 11 dedicated game show channels, including one featuring Deal or No Deal and another for Family Feud.■

Charter Communications and Comcast have formed a joint venture to develop a new streaming platform that will be able to handle a new generation of devices and provide additional functions.

To form the joint venture, Comcast is licensing its Flex streaming platform and contributing the retail business of its XClass TVs and the Xumo streaming service. Charter will be contributing $900 million, funded over multiple years.

"We’re thrilled to partner with Charter to bring this platform and its award-winning experience to millions of new customers,“ Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said.  “These products are all designed to make search and discovery across live, on-demand and streaming video seamless and incredibly simple for consumers.  

“This partnership uniquely brings together more than a decade of technical innovation, national scale and new opportunities to monetize our combined investment,” Watson said. 

Also: Xfinity Flex Now Up to 3.5 Million Deployments

Added Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge: “Our new venture will bring a full-featured operating platform, new devices, and smart TVs with a robust app store providing a more streamlined and aggregated experience for the customer. As the video landscape continues to evolve, this venture will increase retail consumer options, compete at scale with established national platforms, and join our existing lineup of options for the Spectrum TV App available on most customer-owned streaming devices.” 

The joint venture will offer app developers, streamers, retailers, operators and hardware manufacturers an opportunity to reach customers in major markets across the country with the platform.

It will support a variety of branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs, providing consumers with a world-class user experience and navigation, all the top apps and more choice in the streaming marketplace, Charter and Comcast said. ▪️

Fox Weather, the free ad-supported weather service, has added distribution via YouTube TV, Amazon News and The Roku Channel, and will launch on fuboTV and Xumo later this month.

Fox Television stations will also be airing the full linear service on digital channels broadcast by Fox Television Stations in 17 markets.

Select simulcast hours will air on Fox Television Stations’ duopoly stations. 

Also: Fox Weather Generates More Than 1 Million Downloads

“Following our successful launch this past fall, we are excited to significantly expand our distribution footprint and deliver Fox Weather’s innovative coverage to millions of viewers on many of television’s most popular streaming services and devices,” said Sharri Berg, president of Fox Weather. ■

El Rey Network, revived by Cinedigm, has been launched on Comcast’s Xumo as both a free ad-supported linear channel and as a video-on-demand service.

The channel joins Xumo’s lineup of more than 200 channels, including an increasing amount of programming aimed at Hispanic viewers.

El Rey was launched in 2013 by director Robert Rodriguez, who continues to curate the channel’s programming and appears on the series The Director’s Chair. It was shut down in January 2021 as a cable network after financial partner Univision pulled out of the channel. 

“Robert Rodriguez, whose name is synonymous with creativity and innovation, has inspired a whole generation of filmmakers,” said Jennifer Soltesz, VP, business development and strategy at Cinedigm. “More than ever, representation matters, and, with this channel, Rodriguez has given a platform for Latinos to tell their stories and define themselves. Xumo allows the El Rey Network to reach a massive new audience and, through this curated vision, will allow the channel to generate substantial advertising revenue among a key demographic in the growing AVOD and FAST space.” ■

Spartan Race, an extreme sport and wellness brand, working with FAST Studios, is launching SpartanTV, a free ad supported streaming TV channel that will appear starting Monday on Comcast’s Xumo.

The channel will feature new live races, greatest hits from our archive, plus original series and documentaries created exclusively for SpartanTV.

Air Force Special Warfare has signed up as the channel’s anchor sponsor.

Also: Xumo Offering Commercial-Free Movies on Free Streaming Service

“We’re excited about the growing partnership between Air Force Special Warfare and Spartan. Their new streaming channel is just another great opportunity to showcase the admiration and respect we both have for those who train rigorously to become the best at what they do,“ said Maj. Jason Wyche, chief, national events branch, Air Force Recruiting. ”I can’t wait to tune in,”

FAST Studios launched last year as an incubator, helping brands jump into the fast growing market for channels.

Also: Viewers Choosing Ad-Supported Streaming Services: Survey

“We are proud to be partnering with Spartan, a category leader and best-in-class brand that has accumulated a devout and massive global audience,” said Stuart McLean, CEO of FAST Studios. “For more than a decade, Spartan has positively impacted people’s lives and helped millions of its followers adopt a mindset of perseverance and commitment to health and wellness. FAST Studios is perfectly positioned to help Spartan continue this legacy and build on its success, and we look forward to collaborating on engaging, premium content that meets the needs of their growing fanbase and delivers a superior entertainment experience.”

FAST Studios will provide the channel with help in ad operations and sponsorship, channel marketing, streaming technology and financing. It will also support the development of original programming and packaging of Spartan’s existing IP for OTT.

Spartan was started by entrepreneur and endurance athlete Joe De Sena in 2010. It runs more than 40 events in 40 countries per year promoting fitness and overcoming challenges to a community of millions of enthusiasts.

“We’ve been creating inspirational and award-winning content at Spartan for more than a decade, motivating our community to get out of their comfort zones and come out and race,” De Sena said. “We now have our own next-gen TV platform to program 24/7 content to attract an entirely new audience and showcase the amazing stories from our community.”

Streaming platforms are racing to add new linear channels to bring popular programming to cord-cutters.

“The launch of SpartanTV is perfectly timed as our growing audience continues to seek out more live and premium content offerings within the sports and lifestyle space,” Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of programming and partnerships at Xumo, said. “FAST Studios has quickly emerged as an innovator with a creative approach to content, scheduling, branding and sponsorships to deliver a premium, cable-quality channel experience to millions of Xumo users. SpartanTV is an impressive addition to our programming as they bring Air Force Special Warfare as an anchor sponsor, which makes this launch even more unique.”

Xumo is taking the ads out of ad-supported video on demand.

The streaming platform, owned by Comcast, is offering a weekly series of movies that viewers can watch without commercial interruption--the way viewers watch most programming when they pay for subscription streaming services.

Xumo is one of many free, ad supported streaming video services (AVOD ) that are picking up users as consumers start to balk at paying rising fees for an increasing number of subscription VOD (SVOD) services.

Also Read: Channel-Flipping Makes a Comeback

Xumo is promoting its Ad-Free Movie of the Week by calling it a first for the AVOD industry.

The program raises its curtain Monday with the comedy Miss Stevens, starring Timothée Chalamet‎, Lily Rabe and Oscar Nunez. The 2016 film, which got a 91% Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes, is available free without commercials through Oct. 10. 

Not exactly the new Sopranos movie, but the price is right.

After Miss Stevens, the Ad-Free Movie of the Week is Hero, available Oct. 11-17.

To mark Halloween, Xumo is also making Marrowbone available without ads from Oct. 1 to Oct. 24 and We Need To Talk About Kevin will be commercial free Oct. 25-31. 

The November and December movies will be unveiled at a later date, Xumo said.

Also Read: Xumo Adds Game Show Channels With Game Show Network and Sony

Xumo said it tested the Ad-Free Movie of the week concept in August with viewers on Comcast’s Xfinity X1 devices. The offering drove increased sessions per user, frequency of use, and ultimately, a more enjoyable streaming experience, Xumo said.

Also Read: Documentary Plus Launches First Linear Channel on Comcast’s Xumo

The streaming platform is offering a weekly series of movies that viewers can watch without commercial interruption--the way viewers watch most programming when they pay for subscription streaming services.

"As an AVOD industry first, we’re excited to bring Xumo’s Ad-Free Movie of the Week to millions of users across all of our Xumo owned and operated properties,” noted Fern Feistel, senior VP of content operations and marketing at Xumo. “Not only are we delighting our audience, this is already proven to be a significant driver of retention as we continue to test new experiences.”

Xumo offers more than 200 digital channels of free programming across 12 genres, including sports, news, kids and family entertainment, live events, comedy and movies. 

It reaches 24 million unique monthly users. 

Documentary Plus, which launched in January as a streaming ad-supported video-on-demand service is jumping into the linear business with its first channel on Comcast’s Xumo platform.

The 24 hours a day, seven days a week channel will feature curated documentaries and non-fiction series will be available free to Xumo users. 

Bryn Mooser, founder and CEO of Documentary Plus, told Broadcasting+Cable, he’s been pleasantly surprised by the interest in the service.

“As a documentary filmmaker myself, I knew there was a need for a platform like this,” Mooser said. "Streaming is making documentaries available to consumers in a broad way they never have been before."

Since its launch in January, Documentary Plus, a joint venture of nonfiction studio XTR and the late Tony Hsieh,  has over 100,000 app installs, 2 million views on web and mobile devices, with the average user watching 80 minutes of nonfiction content.

Films in the true crime genre like The Imposter and Cartel Land have been among the most popular titles on the services. Sports, cult and funny documentaries have also done well.

Now free, ad supported linear channels are hot and Documentary Plus is taking advantage.

Also Read: Xumo Adds Game Show Channels With Game Show Network and Sony

“This is a pretty revolutionary moment in terms of how people access content,” Mooser said. “I think FAST channels and AVOD in general is the most exciting space in streaming and its got the most room for growth. In every moment where there is a rapid growth in distribution, you have the opportunity to create the next generation of entertainment. What you’re seeing is the next generation of great channels and great networks being born.”

Working with Xumo gives Documentary Plus access to Xumo’s 24 million unique monthly viewers.

“The Documentary Plus channel will engage millions of Xumo users with its extensive range of premium documentary films and series, easily accessible across our wide distribution network,” stated Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of content partnerships and programming at Xumo. “Xumo continues to partner with best-in-class content providers and this new offering from Documentary Plus is no exception.”

Xumo offers more than 200 digital channels of free programming across 12 genres.

Also Read: Channel-Flipping Makes a Comeback

Mooser said Documentary Plus is talking to other distributors. “I want Documentary Plus to be available to as many people in the world as possible,” he said.

The channel will put its newest and best programming in prime time, while also attempting to remain topical. Documentaries about Afghanistan will be featured now, and when subjects like earthquakes in Haiti or cryptocurrencies are in the news, they’ll get rotated into the channel.

The same programming team that curates the VOD service will also use data on what’s working, what people like and what people are talking about to schedule films and shows.

Mooser said that as the channel was being developed, he had staffers watch UHF with Weird Al Yankovic, Wayne's World and A&E’s I Want My MTV documentary to get the spirit of a channel startup.

“The MTV people know that if they could just get the channel in front of people it would work, but access to the airwaves was so difficult back then, Mooser said. “For me and my team to be able to launch a 24/7 channel on documentaries that reaches millions of people with Xumo is just amazing.”

TV watching is going back to the future.

Streaming seemed to change everything about television. Netflix popularized binge watching, and other subscription video-on-demand services reinforced the notion that viewers could watch whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

Partly because of sticker shock, more viewers are watching ad-supported linear streaming services. To find things to watch, they’re going old school, flipping channels like their grandparents did with the living room Philco and using 1980s-style scrolling program guides.

“I come home in the evenings, I’m tired from work,” Xumo CEO Colin Petrie-Norris said in describing his own viewing habits. “I want to eat my meal. I don’t want to hold a remote control and search around for an hour on Netflix trying to pick out a movie.”

In 2020, after Comcast bought Xumo and integrated its channels into Flex’s live guide, which blends linear streaming channels from several providers, the move led to a 62% lift in time watched, Xumo said.

“It’s the old lean-back, lean-forward stuff,” Petrie-Norris said. “When we talk about use cases, everybody’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s a lot of how I watch television,’ but they forget that kind of TV is available.” 

He’s not the only one whose streaming habits are changing.

According to a recent survey by Horowitz Research, 46% of TV content viewers in the U.S. report using an ad-supported streaming service at least monthly. The survey found 28% use a free ad-supported TV (FAST) service with ad-supported linear channels, in addition to watching subscription on-demand services.

AVOD On the Rise

TVision says the share of app viewers using AVOD has grown to 37.4% in the second quarter from 34.5% in the first quarter and 32% a year ago.

“It’s definitely what’s old is new,” said Steve Meyer, VP of Xfinity Flex at Comcast, who manages the streaming product. 

A few years ago, Flex viewing was almost 100% on-demand. Now, one-quarter to one-third of the audience is flipping through channels, Meyer said. The live guide is the third-most-navigated part of Flex’s user interface, behind the home page and search.

“With the proliferation of what is going into these main streaming services, it’s only a matter of time until these become more established habits,” he said. 

Smart-TV maker Vizio said the WatchFree collection of linear channels is the second-most watched AVOD app on its SmartCast platform. 

“We’re seeing lots of engagement via home screen banners, through our search functions and by utilizing the WatchFree button on the remote,” Vizio VP of engagement Steve DeMain said. “But there are a lot of people who are new to streaming that prefer leaning back and surfing, like they have for decades now, through a programming guide. 

“The EPG is a powerful tool for consumers and an area of innovation for us. Leveraging viewing data, we can use the EPG to drive much better experiences. Look for more on that from us in the coming weeks and months ahead.”

Programmers like Jukin Media, which had its origins on YouTube, are creating linear channels for streaming TV platforms. Familiarity with the brand and the content help bring viewers to the channels, Jukin Media CEO Jon Skogmo said. 

“We have built a loyal base of 250 million fans socially, and when they flip through the channels, they can stop and see People Are Awesome or Fail Army,” Skogmo said.

“Flipping’s back,” exclaimed Skogmo’s brother Michael, Jukin’s head of marketing and communications.

Pluto TV has been fighting the gravitational pull of SVOD since it launched as a content website in 2014. “Linear channels might be new to other services, but it’s always been the way Pluto TV acted,” said Scott Reich, senior VP, programming at Pluto TV, now owned by ViacomCBS.

“To a certain segment of the audience, yes, there’s familiarity and there’s that nostalgia element to being able to deal with something that looks like cable,” Reich said. “However, there’s also a whole new segment of the audience that never had cable before, so this is new to them and they’re thrilled that it’s organized this way versus living in the other way where you’ve got to choose for yourself.”

Reich says about 85% of the viewing on Pluto is on the linear side of the platform. But Reich, like others in the streaming business, carefully guards many of the statistics about viewing behavior that they use to build engagement and maximize time spent viewing.

On Pluto, viewers can find things to watch faster through the way the guide and channels are organized by genres and categories. Pluto offers numerous options when viewers want to switch from, say, checking the weather to watching some reality TV or settling into a crime drama. It’s easy to find those things and increase session duration. On average, the typical Pluto viewer will change the channel up to eight times a session after they finish watching a show, looking for the next thing to watch.

“We do see people bounce around the platform, but it’s a positive,” Reich said. 

“If you like reality, we’ve got a whole category for that,” the Pluto executive said. “If you just want to watch movies, we make it easier to get into the genres and formats that might be of interest to someone.”

Those channels are put together by a team of about 30 programmers and channel editors Pluto TV calls experts in their categories. 

“I would say our advantage is that, where Netflix is all driven by behavior and [artificial intelligence], we are human-curated,” Reich said. “We have comedians look to see that the comedy channel is right. We’ve got a former journalist in there as well. My favorite example is always the guy on my team who is a former MMA champion. He looks after the fight channel. These guys are the audience, so they’ve got a leg up knowing what might work.”

Pluto TV has been tweaking its guide to make it easier for users to find things they want to watch without going to another service. The channels are grouped by genre.

“It’s a living, breathing guide,” Reich said. “If a channel is not performing, we’ll try a different strategy. If it’s still not working we might rebrand it completely or drop it. It’s something we’re constantly tinkering with. We look at the data to listen to the audience to see if we’ve got the mix correct,” Reich said. 

Pluto TV judges its channels on a minutes-per-user metric, which tells not only how much time users are spending on a per-session basis, but also how often they come back. “That’s the really important piece,” Reich said. “As long as their session durations are growing, their frequency is going up, we know we’ve got the right mix.”

Dropping channels can be tricky because some heavy Pluto TV users are vocal on social media. Reich notes that viewers get a warning when, for example, the James Bond Channel has to be taken off the platform because the rights temporarily moved to another distributor. 

At Xumo, the channel guide is constantly changing the presentation to users, according to Petrie-Norris.

Typically, the top 10 channels in the guide are based on what’s popular with people similar to the viewer and what’s trending where the viewer lives.

While Xumo strives to give viewers what they want, it also gives viewers choices they don’t know they want. So, instead of the most popular channels — eight news channels and two showing movies — the guide serves up popular channels from more than those two genres, such as three news, two movies, two lifestyle-oriented, two general entertainment and one from sports. That increases engagement by 30% to 40%, Petrie-Norris said.

And instead of giving viewers the three most popular channels in a genre, Xumo offers up two very popular ones plus one the viewer might not have heard of. That technique also can deliver a rise in performance, the CEO said.

Once a viewer has watched for a while, Xumo reconfigures the guide based on what the user has watched in the past. That means different viewers see different channels when they use the remote control to summon the guide
on Xumo.

“Not only is the guide easy to use, but you can make it even more resonant and personalized because of what digital allows you to do,” Petrie-Norris said.

Linear Content Gains on Flex

Comcast has also been making moves to surface linear content on the Flex platform for broadband-only customers who, in addition to on-demand content, were looking at live video channels.

“That was one of the things we noticed early on and we started to lean into,” Comcast Cable’s Meyer said. “So we’ve consciously, with Flex, built our user experience so there are opportunities to surface live in linear content to meet customers where they are with this kind of behavior, which is a very traditional, classic behavior but is absolutely manifesting itself in the streaming space.”

Meyer said that it is becoming increasingly important to help broadband customers find live events as more of them get streamed. Those events range from the Super Bowl and Olympics to the Tour de France and the U.S. Open.

“We put banners on our homepage and we’ve created a live streaming calendar” that highlights both games and new series, like Disney Plus’s Loki, he said. “We’ve really put a lot of energy into our guide to not just say, ‘hey, this is available now,’ but to set expectations so customers can plan and prepare to tune in at a certain time to catch these events, which is again very traditional television viewing behavior.” 

Xumo TV, owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit, said it has launched on Apple TV, giving the ad-supported streaming service distribution on all of the major connected TV platforms.

At the same time, Xumo said it is releasing a series of movie titles from Magnolia Pictures exclusively as part of its Summer Movie Season AVOD package.

Titles include In the Fade, Tomato Red and Please Stand By.

Also Read: Xumo Adds Game Show Channels With Game Show Network and Sony

“According to Comscore’s most recent State of OTT report, more than 30% of Americans stream video via internet connected televisions,” said Chris Hall, senior VP, product at Xumo. “As streaming audiences grow, Xumo’s 200-plus diverse, free and popular channels are more widely accessible than ever, across all of the devices that people use the most. With this level of distribution, we are continuing to deliver in-demand content to tens of millions.”

Also Read: The New Apple TV 4K Reviews Are In -- Rejiggered Siri Remote Is 'Best We've Ever Tested'

Xumo offers more than 200 digital channels of free programming including sports, news, kids and family, live events, comedy, lifestyle and movies. In addition its available via FireTV, Roku, connected TVs, mobile devices and gaming consoles. 

NBCUniversal’s Xumo streaming platform, working with Sony Pictures Television and its Game Show Network is launching new ad-supported channels.

Game Show Central launched Wednesday and Sony Canal Competencias was scheduled to debut later this week.

Also launching is BBC’s Impossible game show network.

All of the channels will be up and running in time for Game Show Week, which runs May 17-23 on Xumo, which also carries channels for Family Feud and Deal or No Deal.

Game Show Central programs include trivia, work puzzle, physical games and competitions from the Game Show Network library. Titles including Winsanity, Idiotest and Baggage.

Sony Canal Competencias show challenge contestants’ knowledge and skills. Programs include Escape Perfecto, the Mexican adaptation of the SPT format Raid the Cage.

Also Read: Crown Media Launches Hallmark’s First AVOD Channel on Xumo

“This partnership is pivotal for Xumo and brings even more great entertainment options to millions of users across a multitude of devices,” said Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of programming and partnerships at Xumo. “We are looking forward to further partnering with Sony to highlight these marquee channels on Sony Bravia devices while aligning with Xumo’s own ‘Game Show Week’.”

Xumo and Local Now have added the Loupe linear channel, a visual art platform and marketplace, to their free ad-supported streaming services.

Loupe distributes a 24/7 4K linear channel, blending visual works from international artists with instrumental music, and distribution of the service, which exists in both app and linear FAST channel format, is growing fast. 

The Xumo and Local Now agreements add to a deal announced last month to include Loupe on Samsung TV Plus in the U.S. Loupe’s linear channel is also featured on ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV, where it reached 500,000 users in its first 30 days on the AVOD platform last summer. Loupe also distributes itself in the form of an app, which is supported by Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex. 

Loupe says it has a total audience of 4 million streamers worldwide, with 1.5 million monthly active users.

Local Now is Allen Media Group’s U.S. streaming service for local news and entertainment. Xumo, a division of Comcast Cable, offers over 200 digital channels of free programming across 12 genres, including sports, live events and lifestyle. The new carriage agreement with Xumo is an international distribution deal that will feature Loupe art on Channel 458, within the lifestyle genre. The international territories that will have access to Loupe will include the U.K., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Italy, France and Germany.

The art platform features themed series every hour, incorporating art delivered with music from the Loupe app. The themed series include Trending Art, Epic Landscapes and Black & White, which features black and white photography. New series will be introduced throughout the year as more art is added to the platform.

Platform founder and CEO Dot Bustelo, a former Apple product manager under Steve Jobs, launched Loupe as a streaming art app on Apple TV in 2015. Loupe eventually became Apple TV’s No. 1 lifestyle app in over 60 countries and saw users regularly tuning in for an average of two hours per session.

“After working at Apple for many years on product, I saw an opportunity in the market to build something transformative in streaming media that I was looking for myself,” Bustelo told Next TV. “As an Apple product executive, I visited top recording studios around the country introducing Apple’s music software to musicians like Trent Reznor and many more. In my studio, I’d run old movies without the sound while listening to and working on music. It puzzled me why I had to run old movies to have extraordinary visuals for music. What about the two billion people streaming music today? What are they doing with their TVs? And why don’t visual artists have the same opportunities for discovery? I thought about the technology of streaming music, and set out to apply similar technology to visual art.”

Xumo TV said it launched Jubao, a new Chinese language ad-supported video-on-demand channel created by International Media Distribution, which like Xumo, is part of NBCUniversal.

Jubao means “collection of treasures" in Mandarin and the channel will feature movies and drama series in Mandarin and Cantonese distributed by Jetsen Huashi, China Television Corp. and Chinese Media Group.

Read Also: Comcast Launches Three Telemundo-branded Channels on Xumo

“The launch of Jubao is in step with our strategy to continue providing a wealth of premium, multicultural content from around the world,” stated Jiro Egawa, COO at Xumo. “Jubao caters to millions of users who can now enjoy best-in-class, native Chinese-language programming through the ease and convenience of the Xumo service.”

Titles available on Jubao include the series Men with Sword, Pretty Li Hui Zhen, Hero’s Dream and To Dear Myself and movies Project Gutenberg, From Vegas to Macau 3 and Go Brother.

Read Also: Xumo Streams Original Content with 'White Elephant'

“IMD is thrilled to bring Jubao to Xumo users across the United States and unveil this new Chinese-language channel during Asian Pacific Heritage Month,” said Christine Fellowes, managing director, NBCUniversal International Networks, Asia Pacific. “Jubao is a free entertainment service offering premium Chinese films and series, created specifically for more than 5.5 million Chinese American consumers in the U.S., providing a range of compelling Mandarin and Cantonese-language content.”

Amazon has announced the addition of IMDb TV and Xumo to the Amazon Fire TV live channel guide, giving Fire TV users access to more than 400 live-streamed channels, half of them free.

Amazon also added the Amazon news app to its live-streamed lineup, with the Plex app “coming soon." Channels and content from these apps will now appear on the “Live” tab within the Fire TV OS, as well as in “On Now” rows, and the Universal Channel Guide for customers that have downloaded the app.

Amazon Fire TV’s live-streamed channel guide now features content from nearly 20 programming providers, including subscription sources like YouTube TV, Sling TV, Philo and Amazon Prime Video, but also free ad-supported outlets like Tubi and Pluto TV. 

Voice commands via Amazon Alexa technology have also been added to the Fire TV interface so that users can surface live shows by speaking commands such as, “Alexa, play Good Morning America” or “Alexa, play the Seahawks game.”

Live TV programs will now appear in the “App Peek” feature of the recently upgraded Fire TV user interface. For example, if a user hovers over Pluto TV in the main navigation, live TV options will surface, and they can quickly navigate to the game or news program. App Peeks are currently available on Fire TV Stick (third generation and above) and Fire TV Stick Lite. Support for additional Fire TV devices is coming this later in March, Amazon said. 

“We’ve always taken a content-forward approach when designing Fire TV,” said Sandeep Gupta, VP & GM of Amazon Fire TV, in a statement. “When you turn on your TV, you’re going to see shows, movies, and sports—not just rows of apps. This philosophy extends to our approach to live content. We’re continuing to invest heavily in Live TV and so are our content partners. We’re expanding that today with the addition of new integrations, Alexa capabilities, and enhanced content discovery mechanisms.”

Amazon Fire TV now touts 50 million active users. And it’s not alone in developing mechanisms to organize, surface and encourage use of live TV channels. Roku has aggressively invested in its Live TV Channel Guide for more than a year. 

Comcast’s Spanish-language programming network Telemundo will launch three branded streaming channels on the free-to-consumer, ad-supported OTT platform Xumo the conglomerate purchased last year for a reported $100 million.

The move follows an announcement last week that  Spanish-language media company Estrella Media's KSDX-EstrellaTV channel is now available on Xumo.

The Telemundo channels will deliver more than 3,000 hours of programming spanning scripted shows, reality, news, sports and telenovelas. They will bolster a Xumo lineup that already includes more than 200 linear streamed channels. 

“Telemundo is a brand synonymous with the highest caliber of Spanish-language content available and adding these exclusive channels on the XUMO service is significant,” said Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of programming and partnerships at Xumo, in a statement. “Today marks the beginning of a valuable, ongoing partnership that will bring the very best curated programming to our growing U.S. Hispanic audience.”

Added said Peter Blacker, executive VP, chief commercial officer and head of DTC licensing, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises: “As Latinos continue to drive non-linear video consumption across the U.S., we are thrilled to partner with Xumo to expand our multi-platform approach to feed the streaming appetite of this young, vibrant and multilingual demographic. This strategic partnership offers Telemundo Enterprises an opportunity to connect further with incremental audiences in Spanish and English and strengthen our position as the choice and voice of the U.S. Hispanic community.”

The new Telemundo Xumo channels include:

Telemundo Al Día Channel: Offering award-winning and top performing daily news, entertainment and sports clips from the most trusted source for the U.S. Hispanic community. This channel will feature programming from

Telemundo Al Día Channel: Offering award-winning and top performing daily news, entertainment and sports clips from the most trusted source for the U.S. Hispanic community.

Telemundo Novelas: Over 1,600 hours of Telemundo's most loved series appealing to wide audiences. This channel will launch with popular “novelas” including Aurora, Flor Salvaje, La Impostora, La Patrona, Relaciones Peligrosas and Marido en Alquiler. Other titles to be added in the future include: El Señor de los Cielos, Señora Acera, Herederos del Monte, Una Maid in Manhattan, Alguien te Mira and Decisiones.

Impact Wrestling, a unit of Anthem Sports & Entertainment, has made a deal with Comcast’s Xumo to launch an Impact Wrestling Channel on the Xumo streaming platform.

The channel will be available to Xumo’s 24 million unique users. 

“This landmark partnership with Xumo provides us with a unique opportunity to bring the Impact Wrestling Channel to nearly 50% of smart TVs in the United States,” said Jaime Pollack, chief revenue officer, Fight Media Group, which includes Impact Wrestling. “We look forward to sharing our expansive library of high-quality professional wrestling programming with Xumo’s users, giving them the ultimate viewing experience with iconic matches, engaging stories and exclusive original series.” 

Programming will include more than 1,000 hours of new and classic original content featuring current Impact World Champion Rich Swann and such iconic grapplers as Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Sting. 

“For almost two decades, Impact Wrestling has blazed a trail as one of the world’s most popular franchises of its kind,” said Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of partnerships and programming at Xumo. “Xumo is dedicated to providing our viewers with the absolute best in premium entertainment, making the Impact Wrestling Channel’s eclectic offerings the perfect complement to our growing lineup. We are excited to build on this strong partnership with Impact as we move into 2021.”

Impact programming is televised globally in 120 countries, including on AXS TV in the U.S. Impact content is also accessible via YouTube, Twitch, Pluto and social media platforms.

Crown Media continues to expand the streaming reach of its wildly popular Hallmark brand, announcing a deal to put a free-to-consumer Hallmark channel on the ad-supported video-on-demand platform Xumo.

The so-called "Hallmark Movies & More" channel represents Crown Media’s first AVOD partnership. The channel will offer a “curated sampling of original content” from the Hallmark library of holiday- and romance-themed movies and specials. 

Also read: Hallmark Movies: Everything You Need to Know About the Middle-America-targeted Brand's Quest to Take Over Video Streaming

Quietly launched in November, Hallmark Movies & More has featured Crown titles including For Love and Honor, starring Rebecca Liddiard, James Denton and Natalie Brown; Once Upon a Winter’s Date, headlined by Nicky Whelan, Greg Vaughan Marina Sirtis; and Pumpkin Pie Wars, starring Eric Aragon and Julie Gonzalo.

Hallmark announced last month that it’s subscription video-on-demand play, Hallmark Movies Now, surpassed 1 million users. 

Also read: Hallmark Movies Now Surpasses 1 Million Subscribers

Xumo said in October that it’s been averaging around 24 million active users since January, making it one of the more widely distributed AVOD platforms. 

“In partnering with Xumo, we are creating yet another access point for new audiences to discover, sample, and enjoy our signature brand of feel-good programming,” said Erin McIlvain, executive VP of content strategy & distribution for Crown Media Family Networks. “Our foray into the AVOD space is an important step in our ongoing mission to maximize distribution of our content and attract new fans to our flagship linear channels and digital services.”

Added Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of programming and partnerships at Xumo: “Crown Media’s Hallmark brand is synonymous with tremendous quality, and will add greatly to our line-up of family-friendly providers. Hallmark Movies & More is bringing high caliber, flagship programming to millions of Xumo viewers who can now enjoy its library of fan favorites across our entire distribution network, which kicks off with the popular, upcoming holiday season.”

Streaming service Xumo, which was acquired by Comcast in February, said it has begun offering original content through a partnership with Bold Soul Studios.

Bold Soul’s new movie, White Elephant is premiering exclusively on Xumo.

Xumo also said it has begun offering a dozen films from Magnolia Pictures that are exclusive to Xumo through the end of the year. 

Related: Cinedigm Brushes Bob Ross Channel Onto Xumo

“As our audience continues to grow, and has more time for streaming and less opportunity for going out to holiday parties this season, we’re excited to invest in increasing the caliber of our content while adding to our incredible library of top-tier free movies from premium partners, as well as bring fresh, original, never-been-seen before entertainment to our users,” said Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of programming and partnerships at Xumo. “Xumo is committed to bringing the best content into the FAST space.”

White Elephant, written by Corey Moss, follows eight friends who get together for an annual white elephant gift exchange. The movie stars Devin Druid, Carmela Zumbado, CoCo Jones, Lana McKissack, Paul Karmiryan, Nathan Moore, Matthew Hancock and Avery Norris.

“We love the idea of disrupting traditional models and debuting directly on an AVOD platform,” said Moss, who co-founded Bold Soul Studios with Brad T. Gottfred. “Xumo is a pioneer in the space, and we are thrilled that audiences will be able to watch White Elephant for free this holiday season.”

The Magnolia Pictures titles streaming on Xumo include 2:22, Person to Person, Bronson, Centurion and Night Catches Us.

"Xumo is among the very best in terms of streaming content, offering millions of users the highest quality premium entertainment,” said Randy Wells, head of home entertainment at Magnolia Pictures. “Making more of our award-winning films available on Xumo extends our reach to an important audience, and gives movie fans even greater access to the best in cinema."

Tastemade said that Tastemade en Español, its first Spanish language streaming channel, launched on the Roku Channel.

Tastemade en Español will also be coming to Vizio SmartCast and Xumo in the coming weeks.

After launch the U.S. Tastemade en Español will roll out to markets in Latin America later this year.

"We are beyond excited to bring rich and inclusive Spanish-language lifestyle programming to U.S. viewers for the first time through the Tastemade en Español streaming TV channel,” said Celia Kakitani, head of LATAM, sales & brand partnerships at Tastemade. 

“As the premiere destination for inspiring lifestyle series and documentaries, Tastemade is delighted to serve our Spanish-speaking audience in the U.S. with premium programming in their local language,” Kakitani said. “We have received an overwhelming response from our partners about the launch, and look forward to working with them to bring high-quality content to viewers at home.”

Tastemade en Español features hundreds of hours of lifestyle programming, including: ArgenMex, Basta de Delivery, BFF, Colombiajeros, Comida Picante, Cook & Laucha 2X1, De Gira, Feli de Primera, Mini Cocina, Mora y Bondi, Nash en India, Nómade, Patagonia Viva, Play With Your Food, Recreo Dulce, Sofi en Buenos Aires, Sofi en España, Tefi en Casa, and Vegánico, plus the Bandalos Chinos, Berlina and Fuego, 

“At Roku, choice, value, and simplicity are at our core and we strive to deliver a great streaming experience to as many people as possible,” said Ashley Hovey, director of AVOD growth, at Roku. “We know there is a healthy consumer appetite for free, ad-supported Spanish-language entertainment. We’re very excited to be working with Tastemade en Español, bringing its vast library to The Roku Channel and delivering a streaming experience our users want and love.”

Cinedigm made a deal with Comcast’s Xumo streaming television service to distribute The Bob Ross Channel to Xumo users as a free, ad supported linear channel.

Users will have access to 380 classic episodes of the public television series, both on the linear channel and via on demand.

“We are proud to be associated with Bob Ross’ lasting legacy. We remain dedicated to driving more exposure to his iconic television show that has entertained millions of fans over the years," said Tony Huidor, Cinedigm’s general manager of digital networks. “With this launch on XUMO, our hope is to further grow his audience by reaching those viewers who have ‘cut the cord’ and seek high-quality entertainment on the leading video streaming platforms.”   

The Bob Ross Channel will be available in 45 million households across Xumo’s network. Xumo was already carrying six other channels from Cinedigm, including CONtv, Docurama, Dove Channel, Bambu, Combat Go and Comedy Dynamics.

As part of Cinedigm’s agreement with Bob Ross, Inc., Cinedigm has produced and distributed special messages of support for public television on the channel, as well as spots highlighting official Bob Ross painting products, and Bob Ross Certified Instructors.  

Jukin Media, which has grown by turning user-generated content into streaming networks, is launching WeatherSpy, which aims to attract younger viewers by pushing adventurous stories of nature and the elements in addition to forecasts.

WeatherSpy starts out with distribution on Samsung TV Plus, Vizio and Xumo. It also will have a short-form series on Snapchat’s Discover page.

“The traditional TV weather viewer is generally older and not digitally native. Our goal with WeatherSpy is to reimagine what a weather network could be and make it more fun and appeal to a younger demographic,” said Cameron Saless, chief business officer at JukinMedia. “Through WeatherSpy, we aspire to appeal to a new generation of cord-cutters and cord-nevers, and fill a void on the top ad-supported linear streaming platforms and on social media.”

The network will air four live weather updates per hour. Jukin didn’t say from where it will be getting its forecasts, or who will be delivering them. 

It did say it will be launching with an original series from Jukin Media called ViralWild and 12 other series from other non-fiction programming producers. Those partners include AirVuz, which features drone videos; Big Media, with shows including Alaska Bush Pilots and Survival Science; Cineflix Rights, with Angry Planet, Dangerous Flights and Rocky Mountain Railroad; dostudioPRO, with Wonder Science; Insight TV with 4K shows including 30/10 Challenge and Chasing Monsters.

WeatherSpy is the fourth linear streaming channel from Jukin Media and the first it has started without first having a brand established in social media. The other brands are FailArmy, The Pet Collective and People Are Awesome.

They now represent the fastest growing part of the company, said Jill Goldfarb, VP of linear programming at Jukin.

“The channels really grew and grew very quickly, and Jukin decided to build out a team and really invest in the linear business,” said Goldfarb, who previously worked at programmers including Fox, Discovery and ABC Family.

Viewing for the channels increased 50% year over year to about 6.5 million hours combined.

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted viewing of over-the-top video. “We certainly saw eyeballs grow during COVID as people were looking for things to do as there were reruns on traditional TV. It’s no secret that streaming channels have increase viewership and we’ve benefited as well,” she said.

Goldfarb said Jukin expects WeatherSpy to attract the same viewers in their 20s and early 30s who watch its other channels, as opposed to the older viewers who watch other weather programming.

"We took a different approach to weather," she said. "We think of weather as an adventure and that’s how we’ve approached it."

Jukin will sell advertising with a combination of programmatic and direct ad sales across its channels.

The company will be using its social assets and linear channels to promote the launch.

Ad-supported streaming service Xumo said it is launching a Free Kids TV channel at a time when youths are home doing school online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Free Kids TV channel will start with more than 40 series, including Degrassi: The Next Generation and Teletubbies from WildBrain.

“Weekday consumption across the Kids & Family vertical has increased significantly over the past month with TV tune-ins spiking around 9:00 a.m. Eastern,” said Stefan Van Engen, Xumo’s senior VP of content partnerships and programming.

“As quarantine keeps our schools closed around the country, more than ever, families are still searching for new and engaging home entertainment options, and Free TV on Xumo is providing hundreds of hours of parent-approved content their children will love,” Van Engen said. “Our service is known for its high-quality programming and we continue to prioritize on-boarding premium, brand-safe streaming content for kids.”

The kids programming will run with ads. “There is a little bit of a less commercial but most importantly our platform is COPPA compliant,” Van Engen said.

Xumo was acquired by Comcast, Xumo is operating independently and Comcast isn’t helping Xumo with kids programming, Van Engen said. 

“We’re delighted that our shows like Teletubbies and Degrassi: The Next Generation will be available to kids and families on Xumo,” noted Lara Ilie, VP of rights strategy at WildBrain. “As one of the leading free, ad-supported streaming TV services, Xumo is an ideal partner to help us bring iconic WildBrain brands and series to viewers.”

Other programming on the Free Kids TV channel includes Raggs Nursery Rhymes from Dotstudioz, Zoomix from Indigenius, Elf Learning For Kids from Glewed TV and Gummy Bear from Imira Entertainment. 

Xumo, the ad-supported VOD and live streaming platform recently purchased by Comcast, announced a deal with Vevo that will give the free-to-consumer service access to a catalog of 450,000 music videos. 

“The new Vevo channel on Xumo is a welcomed addition to our service with its incredible range of premium music-related content,” said Stefan Van Engen, senior VP of content partnerships and programming at Irvine, Calif.-based Xumo, in a statement. “Vevo’s curated programming will appeal to the largest possible cross section of our viewers who turn to XUMO on a daily basis for the best content available. They will be delighted to discover Vevo.”

Presenting more than 190 channels in a traditional linear grid guide, Xumo was purchased by Comcast in February. Closure of that deal is still pending. Comcast didn't disclose its purchase price, but it's been reported to have exceeded $100 million. 

Xumo was founded in 2011 by Viant, the company that now owns MySpace. Xumo was launched in partnership with Panasonic, which integrated the service into its smart TVs. LG and Vizio also include Xumo in their sets now, was well. 

“Tapping into Xumo’s impressive growth and significant distribution scale is a big step towards helping Vevo achieve its goal of bringing music videos back into the living room,” said Rob Christensen, VP of sales strategy and partnerships for Vevo. 

Comcast said Tuesday that it has purchased ad-supported streaming service Xumo. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Xumo, based in Irvine, California, offers free, live and on-demand streaming entertainment, news, sports and features over 190 different genre-grouped channels. Its partners include Roku and smart television brands like Panasonic, LG, Vizio, Samsung and Hisense. Comcast said the company will continue to operate as an independent business inside Comcast Cable.

The deal comes as Comcast is gearing up to launch its Peacock streaming service. That product, which will be free to Xfinity customers, will debut on April 15.

Comcast already has a relationship with Xumo -- it agreed last summer to integrate the Xumo app into its Xfinity set-top boxes. 

“The talented team at Xumo has created a successful, growing, and best-in-class set of streaming capabilities,” Comcast said in a statement. “We are excited for this team to join Comcast and look forward to supporting them as they continue to innovate and develop their offerings.”

Comcast said it has acquired Xumo, an ad-supported streaming service.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Comcast said that Xumo will continue to operate as an independent business inside of Comcast Cable.

Comcast Cable already operates Flex as a streaming service for Xfinity broadband customers. Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit is set to launch Peacock, another ad supported streaming services launching April 15. Last year, Comcast agreed to sell its stake in Hulu to The Walt Disney Co.

“The talented team at Xumo has created a successful, growing and best-in-chase set of streaming capabilities,” Comcast said. “We are excited for this team to join Comcast and look forward to supporting them as they continue to innovate and develop their offerings.

Xumo offers free, live and on-demand streaming entertainment and features more than 190 different genre-grouped channels.

Xumo said it has added the NBC News Now channel to its streaming lineup.

Live content is becoming increasingly attractive to streaming video providers as more viewers cut the cord with traditional pay TV.

NBC News Now, launched last May, offers in-depth reporting and storytelling in addition to live and breaking stories from NBC News resources around the world.

Xumo added ABC News Live to its lineup in November.

NBC News Now is available via Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and Pluto TV and on iOS and Android streaming devices.

Xumo streams more than 180 digital channels of free programming across 12 genres, including news, sports, kids and family entertainment and movies. It also offers movies and episodes of series on demand.

Comcast is in talks to acquire streaming service Xumo, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal said it didn’t know how much Comcast was offering to pay in what were described as “advanced talks” with Xumo, which offers free, ad supported video to consumers. ViacomCBS acquired Pluto TV for $340 million in January and has been boasting about its growth as part of a larger media company. 

The cable giant has reluctantly made plans to get into the increasingly competitive streaming fields as cord-cutting has sliced into its pay-TV business. 

Comcast’s cable TV unit has launched Flex to provide streaming content to its growing broadband-only customer base and its NBCUniversal unit is getting ready to launch its own multi-tiered streaming service Peacock next year.

Details about Peacock are scheduled to be announced at an analysts’ day on Jan. 18.

Comcast has been trying to reassure investors that it will be able to launch Peacock at a relatively reasonable cost. Adding Xumo would cost millions, but could bring technology and experience that could help Peacock start up smoothly.

NBCU would be able to use its extensive contacts with marketers and its advanced advertising technology to boost Xumo’s advertising sales. Peacock is expected to be ad supported, although a commercial-free tier might be available.

AVOD platform Xumo has announced the addition of ABC News Live to its channel lineup.

“There couldn’t be a better time to bring in ABC News Live,” said Stefan Van Engn, senior vice president of content and programming for Irvine, California-based Xumo, noting that the ramp of the 2020 national election has “peaked the national interest levels of the U.S. right now as it relates to news.”

Related: Xumo Expands to Comcast X1, Android TV

Xumo’s news channel lineup already includes CBSN, NBC News Now, Cheddar and Newsy.

Since July, Van Engen said, Xumo has seen a 10% monthly increase in news viewing among its audience.

The Xumo app has already been available natively to users of Comcast’s IP-based Xfinity Flex platform. In addition to the set-tops of the largest pay TV operator in the U.S., the Xumo app also lives natively within T-Mobile’s TVision pay TV service.

Meanwhile, Xumo is expanding the reach of its app to 10 Android TV-powered devices, including Sony smart TV models, Nvidia Shield, and Xiaomi Mi Box. The new partnerships increase the availability of Xumo in the U.S. to over 30 different devices, including Roku and Amazon Fire TV.