LiveTVx: Setting A New Standard in FAST with AI-Powered Content Discovery and Personalization
Written by Kartik Krishnamurthy, Head of Strategy and Operations, and Marc Zand, Chief Content Officer, Anoki Inc
Two years ago, when Anoki AI's founding team envisioned the future of Connected TV (CTV), we saw a clear opportunity: AI would fundamentally transform how viewers discover content and how brands connect with audiences. This insight led to the creation of LiveTVx, the AI-enhanced FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) service that's natively integrated with Google TV.
Reinventing the FAST Experience with AI-Powered Discovery and Personalization
With the remarkable increase in FAST content, better content discovery is essential to consumers, with 84% of consumers reporting that ease of content discovery as a factor in their choice of streaming service. One of the biggest challenges with traditional streaming content discovery is especially acute in FAST: viewers often find themselves endlessly scrolling through static lists of channels and programs, struggling to find something they want to watch. In fact, the average viewer now spends 10.5 minutes per viewing session just searching for content across their streaming services, up from 7.5 minutes in 2019, according to the most recent Nielsen State of Play Report. Additionally, once FAST viewers do find something that they like to watch, it’s common for them to encounter advertising messages that are jarring because they are unrelated to what they’re watching (for example, a diaper ad interrupting a program showing adults out at a bar).
LiveTVx tackles these problems head-on by leveraging advanced AI to create a truly personalized entertainment experience that connects viewers with the content they want to see, when they want to see it, while also delivering benefits for publishers and advertisers:
- Personalized Channel and Content Discovery: The platform dynamically recommends Channels, movies, and shows, based on individual viewing patterns
- Personalized Program Guide: Content discovery is powered by a dynamic EPG (Electronic Program Guide) that personalizes programming for each viewer based on both their app viewing history and ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) data
- Contextual Understanding: Our AI analyzes content to understand viewing preferences and deliver relevant recommendations
- Smart Ad Integration: ContextIQ technology ensures ads are contextually relevant to the content being viewed for a more personalized, seamless viewing experience
Along with these enhancements, the LiveTVx platform delivers a comprehensive streaming experience with premium content from leading media partners who have embraced our AI-first approach:
- We have over 400 free, ad-supported TV channels spanning over 15 genres
- Rich multi-language programming in both English and Spanish
- An extensive video-on-demand library featuring 20,000+ hours of movies, features, and shows
Strategic Partnerships and Global Reach
Since launching in Spring 2024, LiveTVx has established itself as an innovative force in the FAST ecosystem through strategic partnerships with premier media brands including:
These collaborations bring a diverse mix of popular shows, movies, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle programming to our platform, alongside thousands of hours of premium on-demand content.
For our partners and publishers, the combination of Anoki’s ContextIQ technology and ACR technology results in industry-leading monetization capabilities for brands.
Our partnership with Amagi, a global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for CTV, serves as a proof point of the industry's rising interest in FAST and the opportunity it presents for brands and advertisers to connect with audiences across premium programming.
Global Expansion and Accessibility
LiveTVx now reaches viewers beyond the United States, with our successful launch in Australia. Our global expansion will continue in 2025 with plans to reach multiple countries across the EU (starting in Germany), APAC, and LATAM regions. Each new market features localized content and language support, furthering our mission to bring a better, personalized and seamless CTV entertainment experience to viewers worldwide.
As a seamless OS-native app on participating devices with no download required, LiveTVx is delivering a new experience for viewers discovering and engaging with streaming content. By analyzing viewing patterns—including content types and viewing times—our platform delivers highly relevant, contextual content suggestions that reduce search time and enhance the overall viewing experience.
Looking Ahead
As viewers increasingly embrace ad-supported TV—with viewing hours in the US and Canada up 24% in Q3 2024 according to recent research—the need for a more intelligent, personalized streaming experience has never been greater. We are watching a few trends closely as this plays out in the industry in how we expand our services. First, streaming and FAST adoption are growing globally but viewers also expect programs tailored to their needs and available in local languages. Anoki and LiveTVx will continue partnering with content partners to provide free, ad-supported streaming services that are localized to each country. Next, we anticipate more viewers to continue to blend in their On Demand and live FAST Channel viewing. We will explore features that will seamlessly help viewers transition between both services with blended recommendations and the ability to switch from live to On Demand (or vice versa) when appropriate. Last but not the least, CTV presents a unique opportunity to drive better advertising experiences for viewers through contextual targeting at the scene-level and new ad units that can take advantage of this scene-level understanding. All of these trends are additional upside we plan to offer to advertisers and publishers in an already fast-growing industry.
We created LiveTVx with a singular mission: to transform how viewers, advertisers, and publishers experience free ad-supported television. Our vision extends beyond simply offering another streaming option; we're building an entertainment ecosystem where viewers quickly find content they love, advertisers connect with engaged audiences in contextually relevant moments, and publishers maximize the value of their premium content.
With LiveTVx, we look forward to continuing to use the power of multimodal AI to solve the fundamental challenges facing the streaming industry today and making content discovery more intuitive, advertising more effective, and entertainment more enjoyable for everyone involved.
Learn More
To deepen your understanding of the FAST ecosystem and advertising opportunities, we encourage you to explore:
