Ten independently owned companies with a major presence in the streaming world have banded together to form a new entity in the streaming space. The new group, The Independent Streaming Alliance features Allen Media Group, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Cineverse, Future Today, kweliTV, Revry, Scripps, Tastemade, TMB (Trusted Media Brands), and Vevo. The ISA aims to help establish standards in the free ad-supported streaming space at a time that the popularity of the delivery option is growing exponentially.
“The formation of the ISA is long overdue,” said Philippe Guelton, Chief Revenue Officer at Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. “We are joining forces to promote the value of independent streamers, and to work hand-in-hand with platforms, advertisers, and regulatory bodies to ensure that we have a healthy ecosystem that benefits everyone, not just the few.”
To the untrained eye it might seem like this is a group of 10 streaming services working together but it is actually a large group of parent companies working together to strengthen the distribution rights for over 2,200 independent streaming touchpoints, which generate more than half a billion hours of watch time every month, representing a diverse, highly engaged audience of consumers globally.
For instance, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment owns streaming brands such as Redbox, Crackle, Popcorn Flix and Truli. Another partner in the alliance, Cinaverse, has distribution rights and or ownership of AsianCrush, Bloody Disgusting TV, Screambox, The Bob Ross Channel, Cinehouse, Cocoro, Comedy Dynamics (The Nacelle Company), CONtv ,CONtv Anime, The Country Network (TCN Country, LLC) ,Docurama, The Dove Channel, El Rey Network (Robert Rodriguez / FactoryMade Ventures), Fandor, FashionBox HD ,The Film Detective, Gametoon, Midnight Pulp, My Time Movie Network, RetroCrush, and So…Real.
“Most of the members of the ISA were early adopters of FAST and played a major role in its initial growth and adoption,” said Cameron Saless, Chief Business Officer at TMB. “As this industry matures and consolidates, we believe that we can play an important role in helping our peers and partners solve some of the important challenges around content discovery, data privacy, and demand transparency, while also ensuring independent programming does not get left out of the equation.”
The ISA will continue to recruit members across the spectrum of independent ad-supported video streaming services distributed on televisions and other connected devices. In fact their new website has a contact section just to help content owners get in touch with the organization and get integrated into the alliance.
