FashionTV centralises OTT, Connected TV and mobile offerings

Fashion content distribution channel FashionTV has brought its OTT, Connected TV, and mobile offerings onto one centralized management platform through a partnership with Castify.ai, an omnichannel content distribution platform that allows video content owners to create their own branded OTT applications and channels across multiple smart TV and streaming platforms, to expand their viewer reach.

The partnership will enable FashionTV to deliver a single, consistent user experience on all platforms with a branded application and a simplified content management flow. The broadcaster estimates that the move has increased its potential household reach to 50m OTT and connected TV in the US alone.

Today’s OTT streaming services are highly clustered, with each brand operating its own applications or channels’ development and distribution. Entering a new market is an inefficient and resource-intensive process, demanding various coding languages to launch and maintain applications on multiple brands of smart televisions. As a result, brands often limit their distribution to only a select few providers so they can manage the upkeep and demands of maintaining a similar experience across all platforms.

Companies that wish to enter the OTT streaming market have a high barrier of entry, carefully choose which few streaming services they’d like to begin distribution with. Casity.ai’s unified platform is designed to provide simplified onboarding, distribution and monetization of branded OTT applications, as well as growing FAST (Free, Ad-supported Streaming TV) channel offerings. With one centralized platform, content companies can gain a presence on 12 OTT streaming platforms in the form of a native, customizable app, allowing them to focus on the content they produce instead of application development and management. Clients choose placements for logos, branded messages, general application structure, and provide opportunities for premium ad placements.

“As pioneers in the lifestyle market, FTV set its sights on the CTV market,” said FashionTV COO, Yuri Aleksandrov. “We built only a couple of CTV apps prior to working with Castify.ai since the process was expensive, time-consuming, and distracting. Even the ones we built, we found it difficult to maintain and update. By using Castify.ai, where everything happens automatically, we can focus on creating quality content. The FTV team is excited to have now developed 11 CTV apps, and counting.”