Vertical dramas are quietly becoming a billion-dollar global market. Apps like DramaBox and My Drama are outpacing legacy streamers on mobile, powered by 90-second episodes, fast production cycles, and mobile-native monetization. Fox, Disney, and Telemundo are already moving in.
Complimentary Passes for OTT.X Members: Parks Associates' Future of Video 2025
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Local TV Is Finally Ready To Go Programmatic
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TriCoast’s Nick Risher On How A Film Distributor Accidentally Became An Ad Tech Company
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AdGood Launches Nonprofit Media Fund to Make Premium CTV Ads Affordable
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TVIQ Issues Framework to Give CTV Publishers More Control Over Ads
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Why It’s Time for Hollywood to Embrace the Vertical Screen
Vertical dramas are quietly becoming a billion-dollar global market. Apps like DramaBox and My Drama are outpacing legacy streamers on mobile, powered by 90-second episodes, fast production cycles, and mobile-native monetization. Fox, Disney, and Telemundo are already moving in.
The Take
Micro dramas aren’t a trend, they’re a strategy. Studios that industrialize this format will build a new creative pipeline and tap into younger audiences where they live: on their phones.
Read the Full Analysis: The Streaming Wars
Complimentary Passes for OTT.X Members: Parks Associates' Future of Video 2025
OTT.X is proud to continue its long-standing partnership with Parks Associates as a supporting sponsor of the upcoming Future of Video Conference, a leading industry event exploring the latest in streaming, monetization, and audience engagement.
Future of Video brings together industry leaders to share insights on the business of streaming services and the monetization strategies emerging as a result of new business models, bundles, connected video devices and shifting video viewing habits.
As part of this ongoing collaboration, OTT.X members are eligible for complimentary admission to this year’s Future of Video. Non-members are invited to join us at a special 50% discounted rate with code FOV25-50SP courtesy of OTT.X.
Join Parks Associates, OTT.X and a bevy of industry leaders to discuss the innovations shaping the future of connected entertainment November 18 - 20 in Marina del Rey CA.
Local TV Is Finally Ready To Go Programmatic
Dentsu is launching a partnership with ITN/Magnite on its local linear programmatic buying platform in Q1 2026.
After years in development, a programmatic solution for buying and selling local linear advertising is finally ready to launch.
“We have a newly formed partnership with ITN that is going to change the game as we move into the future with local television,” said Heather Gundry, EVP, head of local audio and video investment at Dentsu, during a panel on local TV advertising at TVNewsCheck’s Local TV Strategies event at NAB New York last week.
“It’s going to give us the ability to not only reach our audience, but to reach the right stations and reach them at a more efficient speed than we are now,” Gundry said. “The ability to optimize buys while they’re on air is fantastic. That newly formed partnership is kicking off in the first quarter. I really am passionate about this because I think we’re going to see more dollars go towards local television because we have this opportunity.
”ITN and Magnite have announced the launch of the industry’s first local linear TV private marketplace specifically designed to close the programmatic gap for local broadcast. Local linear TV inventory will be available to agency buyers through Magnite’s ClearLine platform. The system will allow buyers to replicate digital workflows, offering such features as self-service deal ID creation; precision controls for geo-targeting, daypart, affiliate, program and genre; and automatic bidding for delivery management and digital-like delivery dashboards, ITN/Magnite said. The result should be that buyers can activate entire local marketplaces across digital, streaming and now, local television.
Read the Full Story: TVNewsCheck
TriCoast’s Nick Risher On How A Film Distributor Accidentally Became An Ad Tech Company
“We didn’t set out to build an ad tech company — we just wanted to sell our own movies better. But once you start optimizing inventory and filling demand for other publishers, you realize you’ve become one.”
TVREV sat down with Nick Risher, CEO of TriCoast Media, to talk about how a family-run genre distributor evolved into a hybrid entertainment and ad tech company — and why its Dark Matter Film Festival is the next logical step.
ALAN WOLK (AW): Let’s start from the beginning. TriCoast has been around for a while, but your evolution into ad tech wasn’t exactly planned. How did it happen?
NICK RISHER (NR): We started back in 1987 as TriCoast Worldwide, a foreign sales company selling action, horror, and sci-fi films internationally. In the 2000s, we launched TriCoast Entertainment to distribute films domestically — first to theaters, then to iTunes and Google.
Over time, we built up a library of about 5,000 titles, and about 90% of our revenue now comes from AVOD. We sell to everyone — Vizio, Samsung, Pluto, Tubi, Roku.
Eventually, we created TriCoast TV to launch our own FAST channels. The biggest is Dark Matter TV, which became a top-tier genre channel. That’s really when the ad tech side started to grow.
AW: Tell me about your transition to an ad tech platform. What was the “aha moment” that made you realize TriCoast could do more than just distribute content?
NR: When we started distributing our films through FAST, we assumed revenue share would be the way to go. But even with solid viewership, the ad impressions didn’t add up fast enough. So we pivoted to inventory share and started selling ads directly.
Sponsors wanted scale — 30 million impressions, not 3 million — so we went back to our partners to see if we could help fill their unsold inventory too. Before long, we were connecting publishers, SSPs, DSPs, and agencies. That’s when TriCoast Media was born — essentially a mini ad network that grew out of our publishing business.
Read the Full Article: TVREV
AdGood Launches Nonprofit Media Fund to Make Premium CTV Ads Affordable
AdGood has announced the launch of its Nonprofit Media Fund. The fund pools charitable donations from individuals and organizations to provide nonprofits with subsidized access to premium CTV campaigns, helping mission-driven organizations reach new audiences and inspire action.
The Nonprofit Media Fund ensures that organizations with limited budgets can run high-impact campaigns across top streaming platforms. Donations go directly toward offsetting media costs, while AdGood provides campaign management, and reporting to maximize impact.
“In creating the Nonprofit Media Fund, we’re bridging the gap between limited nonprofit budgets and the premium ad channels that shape public attention,” said Kris Johns, Founder and CEO of AdGood. “Every dollar donated helps nonprofits amplify their voices on the screens where audiences are most engaged.”
“Donors want to know their contributions are making a tangible difference, and the AdGood Nonprofit Media Fund delivers exactly that,” said Maureen Peltier, Head of Donor Relations at AdGood. “Every donation directly powers premium ad campaigns for nonprofits, ensuring their missions are seen, heard, and supported by audiences ready to take action.”
Read the Full Article: NonProfitPRO
TVIQ Issues Framework to Give CTV Publishers More Control Over Ads
The connected TV business is like the weather. Everyone talks about it but no one can do anything to fix it.
With consumers still cutting the cord, streaming’s share of viewing continues to rise. And with the economy tightening up budgets, free ad supported streaming TV (FAST) channels are becoming an increasingly popular option.
And yet, while CTV boasts about offering targeting at scale within premium content, ad dollars aren’t flowing as fast as eyeballs. And of the ad dollars that are going to FAST channels, not enough of them are going to the programmers to sustain and grow the category, TVIQ CEO Scott Ryan tells The Measure.
“Individual channel operators are struggling in the connected TV world,” Ryan says. “They’re struggling because the power, the innovation and the aggregation that inevitably occurs in ad tech is happening on their backs.”
Ryan says FAST channels should be benefiting more from the growth of CTV and the ad dollars flowing into it. Instead, they’re encountering lower fill rates, lower CPMs and distributors are assuming more and more control.
The problem is that when channels make deals to get distribution on platforms like Roku, they give up a big chunk of their ad inventory and lose the ability to use a lot of the data about who is watching their programming.
Specifically, TVIQ says distribution platforms dictate their ownership rights over inventory, they routinely devalue publishers' bid requests and limit publishers in how they can represent and value their own supply.
Ryan says there’s nothing nefarious about those deals, which took form 10 years ago when the streaming business was in its infancy. The terms mirror the distribution deals made by cable channels that provided operators with a local ad inventory.
Now those deals need to be rebalanced, Ryan argues, but individual channels don’t have the clout to force the distributors to give the better terms at a time when the digital giants are flexing their ad-tech muscles.
Ryan’s solution is to try to build a coalition that would buy for what TVIQ is calling The Framework for Publisher Empowerment.
Read the Full Story: The Measure
Read the Framework for Publisher Empowerment: TVIQ
Streaming Subscriber Revenue from Stephen King Adaptations
Presented By:
Stepehn King adaptations have proven to be a goldmine for both the big and small screen. Parrot Analytics' Streaming Economics reveals which have been the most lucrative for streaming.
Key Findings
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- Since 2020, Stephen King adaptations have generated over $650 million in global streaming revenue across platforms.
- Hulu’s Castle Rock leads the pack, having brought in $57.9 million in streaming revenue since 2020, beating out even classic King adaptations like The Shining or The Shawshank Redemption.
- HBO’s new show, IT: Welcome to Derry, is already showing breakout potential. Pre-release demand has surpassed every other recent King-based TV adaptation, signaling another major genre hit and a reminder of how proven IP delivers long-term subscriber value.
In Case You Missed It
- Fox Leans Into Tubi, Buybacks, and Bundles as Revenue Climbs 5%. The Streaming Wars
- YouTube Powers Alphabet’s $100 Billion Quarter as Shorts and AI Redefine Its Growth Story. The Streaming Wars
- Ask Skip: Does every smart TV manufacturer really need its own FAST service?. The Streaming Wars
- Looney Tunes Finds New Life and a New Audience on Tubi. The Streaming Wars
- From the Archives: SnagFilms’ Rise, Legacy, and Reinvention as ViewLift. The Streaming Wars
- Adobe and YouTube Team Up to Supercharge Shorts Creation on Mobile. The Streaming Wars
- Netflix Bets on Cultural Moments and AI-Powered Errything. The Streaming Wars
- Netflix Turns Stranger Things Finale Into a Cinematic Event. The Streaming Wars
- How FloSports Is Meeting Fans Where They Watch. The Streaming Wars
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