ViX launched its first FAST channels in 2019. “The reason or one of the reasons that we did it early on, and we continue to do it, is because we see an amazing opportunity to drive reach through FAST channels and engage audiences across all the major platforms. So, as a content owner, creator, and producer, TelevisaUnivision owns one of the largest libraries of content in the world in any language and certainly the largest in Spanish. So, we see FAST as a great way to leverage that massive library we have built over decades of producing content. So, as a content creator, it is a great distribution platform for us,” said Rafael Urbina, COO of ViX.
Urbina noted that the world of content distribution is changing quickly and sees FAST as one of the principal beneficiaries of those changes. “It’s one of the fastest-growing areas of the ecosystem. So, for us, it’s important to be present. And we’ve had, on platforms like Roku, Samsung TV, DISH, and several others, multiple FAST channels for quite a while. They’re driving and continue to drive large audiences. And pretty soon, we’ll be announcing more FAST channels on several platforms. So, we continue not only to sustain what we’ve done but, kind of double down and launch more channels and gain wider distribution.”
He said that currently they have about 10 to 12 FAST channels per platform and very soon that number will rise to 15 or 20.
But FAST channels are just one part. ViX is also a platform and, according to Urbina, perhaps the largest Spanish language streaming platform worldwide. “We have a great reach in our own right within our apps across both mobile and connected TV platforms. So, at the same time, we are a creator of channels and a distributor of FAST channels. So, ViX has over 100 FAST channels available for free. And that continues to be an important and growing part of our business as a streaming service. We continue to expand that offering. We recently launched channels in the News and Sports category, and we’ll continue to do so more and more selectively. We want to be a great curator of Spanish language content for our audience.”
Urbina pointed out that one of the areas they want to improve is content personalization. “I think all platforms, including ours, are looking at personalization ways for folks to bookmark favorite channels, ways to make it easy for consumers to return to channels they were watching before. So, there are all kinds of things that platforms are doing, and we will continue to do to try to drive more adoption on FAST.”
For Urbina, the main benefit of FAST boils down to reaching and engaging audiences where they are on the platforms in multiple ways. “We want to engage audiences on ViX on on-demand content, and that’s a big part of what we do. We also want to engage them with live content, if that’s what they prefer, on our FAST channel, and so on, on ViX or outside of ViX. So, for us, ultimately, FAST channel distribution is a great way to drive incremental reach for our advertisers as well. We can aggregate it and then make it available to our advertisers. So, it is a big part of our streaming advertising business today and a growing part.”
Maribel Ramos-Weiner
