Venerable Plex Video App Emerges as Favorite FAST – Forbes Achi-News

With cord cutters and streamers becoming more selective about where they invest their subscription dollars and the costs of premium services like Netflix
NFLX
FAST (Free TV with Support) services which offer dense bundles of specialist channels and old content are on the rise among consumers. One of the more interesting competitors is Plex, a privately held company that started in the late aughts as an app to help video enthusiasts organize and share their home libraries. Plex expanded into the space FAST in 2018, and today announced that it has surpassed a thousand channels (1112, actually, including the newly announced NFL Channel) in its free-to-stream program, giving it making one of the largest inventories in the market.

The growing popularity of the FAST model, which also appeals to advertisers looking to combine a 30-second sizzle spot with online platform data targeting, has drawn many players into the space, each with their own spin on and a service that can appear very similar to viewers. After all, how many channels of British murder mystery, 2000s-era hit shows and Hallmark rip-offs can providers squeeze through a fiber optic cable before viewers stop caring exactly where it’s coming from?

The companies that emerge at the top need to provide a unique and special experience for consumers, along with a strong value proposition for advertisers. Each major player has its own advantages: Roku’s OTT experience, Tubi’s roots as an ad-tech platform, Samsung and LG’s ownership of the TV interface, Amazon
AMZN
Prime connection with users, etc. Plex’s edge, according to company executives, is its community.

“We started as personal media management software,” says Plex CEO Keith Valory, who joined the company in 2012 at the invitation of co-founder and current chief product officer Scott Olechowski. “Ultimately, we thought the more interesting problem to solve over time is media chaos. People shouldn’t have to go to 20 different apps to get the content they want.”

Valory says Plex has grown a base of hardcore video fans who use the product to keep track of vast media libraries. These enthusiasts pushed the company to develop rich capabilities around content management, discovery, recommendations, reviews and shareability, which turn out to be important differentiators when viewers are faced with thousands of choices.

Valory says he and Olechowski began building the framework for an AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) strategy in 2017, making business development deals with studios and building relationships. They launched the service in 2019, just in time to benefit from the COVID streaming boom. “We launched our FAST channels and continued to accelerate the business,” he said. Over time, Plex has added live content, sports and hyperlocal channels to the service, available in over 180 countries worldwide, offered through the familiar Plex interface.

!function(n) if(!window.cnxps) window.cnxps=,window.cnxps.cmd=[]; var t=n.createElement(‘iframe’); t.display=’none’,t.onload=function() var n=t.contentWindow.document,c=n.createElement(‘script’); c.src=’//cd.connatix.com/connatix.playspace.js’,c.setAttribute(‘delay’,’1′),c.setAttribute(‘type’,’text/javascript’),n. body.appendChild(c), n.head.appendChild

(function ()
function createUniqueId()
return ‘xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-4xxx-yxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx’.replace(/[xy]/g, function(c)
var r = Math.random() * 16);

const randId = createUniqueId();
document.getElementsByClassName(‘fbs-cnx’)[0].setAttribute(‘id’, randId);
document.getElementById(randId).removeAttribute(‘class’);
(new Image()).src = ‘https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=546f0bce-b219-41ac-b691-07d0ec3e3fe1’;
cnxps.cmd.push(function ()
cnxps(
Player ID: ‘546f0bce-b219-41ac-b691-07d0ec3e3fe1’,
Story id: ”
).render(randId);
);
)();

According to Gavin Bridge, VP of Media Research for CPG Global and a FAST-focused analyst who tracks the number of FAST channels in the US through his monthly FASTMaster report, there were more than 1,963 FAST channels in the US alone in March 2024. Currently, Plex accounts for 847 of them, and it’s growing every day.

Building click appeal for viewers is one part of the FAST equation, but the other critical element is serving that audience to advertisers in the narrowest, most targeted segments possible. Each FAST platform has its own proprietary algorithms for programmatically targeting and placing the right spots to the right viewers, based on what it knows about the behavior and inaccessibility of its audience. Sponsors need to weigh that when deciding how to allocate their media dollars.

Valory says Plex’s edge comes from its data. “We are very open and transparent about sharing data with our content partners and advertising partners within the bounds of privacy,” he said. “But we also have a different, more affluent set of users because they’re coming in to manage a number of their subscriptions and whatnot. We can identify them together [preserving privacy] and essentially create high-end profiles of what users are watching across all devices, all countries and all services.”

Because of its unique heritage, Plex has data that no one else has, about user behavior behind the firewall when consuming their owned video content. Valory says many users choose to share this data to improve recommendations and relevance. “We have an opportunity to help advertisers target those users on other platforms like TikTok or Facebook,” Valory said.

The company has also invested in its ad delivery capabilities. “We are making sure that we have maximized our ability to stay in the programmatic market, to the point that our programmatic sales are much better than our direct sales,” said Todd Hay, Vice President of Revenue and Engage Plex. “The next step was to enrich what that inventory looks like. Advertisers like to have that visibility for brand safety.”

Hay says the company uses its detailed data about viewer behavior to help microtarget in-stream trailers, native advertising, sponsored hubs, and opportunities to insert content into a viewer’s watch list with a one-click popup. He says this helps brands target consumers according to their associations: for example, correlating cruise ads with food programs because of the high correlation between those viewers and that product.

The frequency, length and intrusive nature of these spots – even if they are highly targeted and relevant – have angered some users, including many in the hardcore Plex fan community, who view the move with concern the company’s focus away from their favorite media app and towards the streaming market. Many have requested a paid tier without premium ads, but FAST’s content distribution and licensing agreements prevent that, according to the company.

Valory acknowledges the community’s concerns. “We love our superfans and their needs are very important,” he said. “I think a lot of them understand that, realistically, for us to grow and thrive, we can’t just be a personal media server running at home. But at the same time, the biggest development team in the company still serves the personal media product even though it’s not the biggest revenue business, and we can only do that because of all the other things we do .

“People will say oh, that’s the only CEO who gives a political answer, but I assure you, we talk about this all the time internally, and some of the biggest superfans and the strongest users of the product are the people who work here.”

Valory said Plex, which does not currently disclose financial information, generates about 20 percent of its revenue from member subscriptions, which unlock the premium capabilities of its media platform, compared to 80 percent of the advertising business.

Moving forward, Valory says the company sees opportunities in bundling paid subscription models, using Plex’s detailed knowledge of consumer tastes and behavior. “Some services pay crazy amounts on user acquisition,” Valery said. “I think our better opportunity is to help other subscriptions bundle and create discounts for end users. We don’t need to take a dime from that; we will make our money on advertising and helping people get the content they want.”

The reorganization of premium SVOD services has just begun, and the FAST/AVOD market, with its range of players and unique value propositions, makes it a difficult environment for advertisers, investors and consumers to place their bets. But whatever the future of streaming holds, Plex is betting that the best strategy is to build out from the middle

.

Ad blocking test (Why?)

Source link

Related