After a series of acquisitions and extension to its bouquet, streaming technology and entertainment provider Cinedigm has unveiled its new flagship streaming service Cineverse.
Promoted as the world's largest streaming library, Cineverse contains thousands of hours of film and TV programming from over 600 partners and Cinedigm's portfolio of brands and channels.
Cineverse will focus on several fundamental areas that Cinedgm believes are increasingly being ignored by the major streamers. In particular, the company believes that as the largest streaming companies in the world reduce their film and TV offerings in order to chase a big-budget ‘tentpole’ model, hundreds of thousands of films and series are not available to consumers.
To address this, Cineverse aims to provide a library offering what the company says is the “immense” diversity and variety that viewers are being denied on subscription-based services. Fans can access linear channels and on-demand titles in one place, browsing through the genres they love from anime and horror to sci-fi/fantasy, comedy, music, independent film and more. Cineverse plans to add more than 10,000 additional films and television episodes by the end of 2022 and several hundred thousand more over the next three years. In addition, Cinedigm will launch with entertainment content from its own streaming library provided by more than 600 licensors and expects to dramatically expand the licensor pool over the coming year.
Also, at the centre of Cineverse is a starting line-up of free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) linear channels that showcase Cinedigm-owned and managed channels including AsianCrush, Bloody Disgusting, The Bob Ross Channel, The Country Channel, CONtv, CONtv Anime, Crime Hunters, Docurama, The Dove Channel, The Elvis Presley Channel, Fandor and Screambox.
Through the company's partnership with cloud-based SaaS technology provider Amagi, Cineverse will offer a wide array of (FAST) linear channels. In the coming months, the company anticipates adding a broad range of additional curated channels from Amagi's Content Plus marketplace, monetised using Amagi's first-party ad platform, Amagi Ads Plus.
Cinedigm plans to rapidly expand consumer reach by distributing Cineverse on a white-label basis to hardware OEMs, telcos, cable providers, theatrical exhibitors and retailers. It will also drive adoption of the service utilising its 87 million viewer base and app install base across mobile, CTV and social footprints.
"With the Cineverse launch today, we begin an important journey as a Company," said Cinedigm chairman and CEO Chris McGurk commenting on the launch. "Our mission is to build the Spotify of Independent film and television, with the largest library of film and TV programming in the world. Beyond that, our fantastic R&D team is working on tackling one of the biggest challenges in streaming today: how to make content discovery fun, easy and rewarding. All our streaming efforts over the last five years have led to this moment, and I'm excited to see us graduate into being an even bigger leader and disrupter in the high-growth streaming space."
