LOS ANGELES—Cineverse has launched Cineverse 360 (C360), a new ad platform providing brands the ability to connect with 82 million monthly viewers across the company's owned and operated partners.
The company noted that C360 will offer custom marketing integrations including audio opportunities on the Cineverse Podcast Network, display, social, experiential in-person events, and connected TV (CTV) advertising on the company's owned and operated free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels.
As part of the launch, Cineverse is also launching the Cineverse 360 Audience Network (CAN).
Starting next quarter, it will bring advertisers a scalable solution for reaching enthusiast audiences across a network of Cineverse and third-party publishers. Advertisers will be able to have access through CAN and its partners to hundreds of FAST channels with inventory on platforms such as Philo, Plex, Samsung TV Plus, Vizio Watchfree, Xumo and others. Cineverse's sales and partnership teams are in active conversations to expand the network significantly throughout 2024.
Properties that will be available in the network at launch include: AsianCrush, Cineverse, Crime Hunters, Docurama, Dove Channel, EntrepreneurTV, Fandor, Film Detective, For Us By Us, Lone Star, Midnight Pulp, Real Madrid TV, RetroCrush, SCREAMBOX, Sid and Marty Krofft Channel, So...Real, The Preview Channel, The Bob Ross Channel and more.
Cineverse also operates and sells advertising against several social video channels reaching more than 40 million monthly viewers on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, including Cineverse Romance, Free Movies by Cineverse, K-Crush, QTTV and more.
The company also reported that in addition to select third party enthusiast streaming services, Cineverse 360 will be offered as an optional, integrated monetization service for SaaS customers of Matchpoint's Blueprint product. In addition to world-class monetization opportunities, Matchpoint customers will have access to a suite of tools that will automate ad break creation, provide enhanced metadata enrichment for improved targeting, SSAI, advanced ad analytics, and more. These capabilities are available immediately.
To lead these new initiatives, Terry City, an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience building and leading sales and partnerships divisions, has joined as senior vice president and head of Cineverse 360.
City has extensive experience in the ad landscape, with executive roles at Variety, Yahoo Entertainment, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Tumblr and most recently Tastemade. In addition, City is the co-founder of Steel Titan Entertainment, producers of the Emmy Award winning ESPN: 30 for 30 film, Playing for the Mob. City is also an advisor to many startups and entrepreneurs as well as being a mentor to college students and young industry professionals. City will expand the advertising team significantly over the next quarter to provide expanded ad vertical coverage nationally.
"With our unique ability to execute 360-degree programs for our clients, bring exclusive access to audiences of passionate fans across several popular genres – fans that are not available anywhere else – and offer brands the ability to get in early on a number of our new and soon-to-debut FAST channels we are positioned stronger than ever to take advantage of industry trends," said City. "We have taken control of more inventory and put the resources behind brand partnerships to do creative, custom sponsorships, giving us the capacity to achieve significant growth."
Additionally, Cineverse has brought on Andrew Baritz, and Eventually A Castle where he is principal, to oversee C360 ad operations and strategy. Baritz will focus on launching The Cineverse Audience Network, to include developing new advertising products, audience targeting capabilities, and data activation, as well as overseeing ad operations and optimization of the overall 360 business.
More information is available at cineverse.com.
