Estrella Media has partnered with global tech platform, FreeWheel, to expand its connected TV (CTV) advertising business. "As audiences fragment across screens, programmers and advertisers need solutions that can help them find and scale this viewership across CTV," said Katy Loria, Chief Revenue Officer at FreeWheel. "Estrella is seeing significant growth with the important US Hispanic market across its CTV audiences. We're thrilled to be a key partner to help the company drive and monetize this business.”
Through this partnership, both companies hope to contribute to the growth of Hispanic CTV across the Estrella Media platforms thru EstrellaTV, Estrella News, Cine EstrellaTV, Estrella Games and the EstrellaTV App. Estrella drove over 1.33 billion streaming minutes of its original content in November with a third of it on CTV, including the hit reality series Rica Famosa Latina, the venerated Premios de la Radio Regional Mexican music awards, the scripted Latin comedy Norteados con Don Cheto and five daily news shows on Estrella News including 24 Horas.
While more and more households across the US consume CTV, there has also been a critical consumption shift within Hispanic households. According to Nielsen research, Hispanic households over-index on CTV consumption compared to the average US household, while Horowitz Research indicates that seven in 10 Hispanic TV content viewers watch Spanish-language programming, reflecting an 11% increase from last year. Furthermore, the share of Hispanic TV content viewers who rely only on streaming has also accelerated, marking 38% of Hispanic only subscribe to streaming services and not to an MVPD.
FreeWheel has agreed to help operate Estrella’s comprehensive revenue strategy for direct and programmatic monetization to reach Hispanic audiences, including all CTV and OTT inventory. Estrella Media has now garnered a content catalog of more than 20,000 hours of original video content. By leveraging FreeWheel’s advanced technology, the media company is on track to accelerate its growth into the valuable CTV space across FAST and AVOD. "Our passionate audience is watching more CTV than ever before,” said René Santaella, Chief Digital & Streaming Officer. "We need to make sure they get an excellent free ad-supported experience surrounding the content they love. FreeWheel is helping our ad sales operation achieve better ROI on CTV so everyone wins.”