NBCU Bows Vast FAST Licensing Portfolio, Signs Freevee, Xumo Play

In a particularly ambitious and high-profile example of entertainment companies licensing content to rivals to drive new revenue — particularly in the free, ad-supported (FAST) space — Comcast’s NBCUniversal has aggregated content from across its assets to create a vast portfolio of licensable FAST channels, and signed Amazon’s Freevee and Xumo Play as its first customers.

The deals span the entire expanded NBCU FAST portfolio, and will bring nearly 50 new linear channels to both Freevee and Xumo Play, the FAST joint venture formed by Comcast and Charter.

NBCU has also tapped Xumo Enterprise to power distribution of the new FAST channels for licensed partners.   

NBCU already offered licensable FAST channels including Dateline 24/7, NBC News NOW, and Local NBC and Telemundo news stations. 

The greatly expanded licensable offering includes shows from across NBCU’s TV and streaming assets and the NBCU Global Distribution library.

The new offerings include entertainment, news, sports and Spanish-language channels, including past seasons of current series including “Saturday Night Live,” “The Real Housewives” franchises, “Top Chef” and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” as well as Spanish-language entertainment and news from Telemundo, including “Historias de Amor,” “Lo Mejor de Telemundo” and “Telemundo al Día.”

Library series including “Little House on the Prairie," “Murder, She Wrote” and "Saved by the Bell,” as well as other genre-based sitcoms, action, crime, westerns and monster-movie content, will also launch as dedicated FAST channels.   

“NBCUniversal is in the enviable position of owning a vast array of iconic shows that are not part of our broadcast and cable networks to curate a valuable portfolio of FAST channels,” said Matt Schnaars, president, NBCUniversal content distribution. “These channels, with content from some of the most recognizable brands in television, will find an immediate audience in the growing FAST ecosystem, and create value for NBCUniversal, our distribution partners and our advertisers.” 

NBCU’s Peacock dropped its free tier this year, but a few of the linear channels on Peacock are among those that will also be featured on Freevee and Xumo Play.

Peacock also just became the first platform to use a new content discovery feature that ties into Vizio’s WatchFree+ free, ad-supported/FAST streaming app and smart TV interface to let Vizio users preview episodes of 16 popular Peacock titles, and provide prompts and a direct link to sign up for Peacock. 

Beyond NBCU, earlier this month, Freevee added 11 licensed channels featuring Warner Bros. Discovery content, and it will also be adding 12 channels featuring content from MGM, which Amazon acquired in 2022.

WBD also signed deals with The Roku Channel and Fox’s Tubi in January spanning 225 AVOD shows, including “West World,” that will add on-demand content to linear FAST channels. 

1 comment about "NBCU Bows Vast FAST Licensing Portfolio, Signs Freevee, Xumo Play".
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  1. Ben B from Retired, July 1, 2023 at 12:17 a.m.

    One of the fast channels will be TNBC which a lot of the shows from that era haven't been seen in 20+ years, from Cal Dreams, Hang Time, City Guys, and USA High which wasn't on TNBC it was on USA Network. Glad to see that with Saved By The Bell Fast Channel will have The New Class even know it never did well like the OG show. I thought The New Class best seasons were season 2 through 5 seasons 1, 6 & 7 weren't all that good in my opinion I have The New Class on DVD Seasons 1 through 7.

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