Speedvision Revs Up Distribution With MyFree DirecTV

Image courtesy of Speedvision

At a time when distributors are steering into the skinny bundle lane, cutting down on the number of channels they carry, Speedvision has made a deal to stream as part of MyFree DirecTV.

The three-year-old auto lifestyle channel is now on 15 platforms, seen in 20 countries, has a library of more than 700 hours of content in its library and is breaking even, founder and CEO Bob Scanlon tells TVRev.

With MyFree TV, viewers can watch Speedvision’s vehicle content at no cost just by downloading the DirecTV app.

Scanlon, who started the original Speedvision cable channel before it was acquired by Fox, and Velocity, before it was renamed Motor Trend by Warner Bros. Discovery, says DirecTV reached out to him because Speevision is a good complement to the sports programming and live games that are accelerating with popularity among distributors, even in this era of industry belt tightening.

“They recognized the brand value of Speedvision as an automotive lifestyle brand,” Scanlon said. “We are a good complementary channel and category to the sports category, because our viewers are very sports-centric.

With distributors paying top dollar for sports and creating packages of live sports and news channels. Many of the new sports channels are designed to be “skinny” with fewer channels. But what consumers really want is packages that are cheap, and Speedvision doesn’t ask for a subscriber fee that needs to be passed on in the form of higher prices. Speedvision is supported entirely by ad revenue.

Robert Scanlon (Photo courtesy of Speedvision)

“What the platforms have found is that when sports fans are not watching sports, they are coming to us. So we are a great maintainer of eyeballs for the platforms when sports are not happening,” Scanlon said. “When the games are over, the higher-profile viewers aren’t watching anymore because there’s nothing of interest on. They want to keep the eyeballs on the platform and that’s why we’re valuable to them. We’re such a good asset for them so we’re seeing ourselves as a really strong sports-adjacent channel.”

With no football games played on the most recent Saturday, it was one of Speedvision’s biggest nights. “In the automotive category, we are in the top two or three on virtually every platform,” which he said validated the channel’s value. That category includes channels that don’t show live motor races, such as Motor Trend, which Scanlon said is still drawing ratings with programming he was responsible for back when he ran it.

Scanlon said that because Speedvision is available on multiple platforms–some of which are reticent about sharing data–he couldn’t provide a good estimate of Speedvision’s viewership. The lack of a rating didn’t affect Speedvision’s revenue because its distributors sell the ad inventory on the chanel and share a portion of the revenue with Speedvision.

The auto category has always been a big advertising spender and Scanlon said that media buyers are still trying to figure out whether to move money from traditional networks to streaming. He noted though, that auto advertising is fairly recession proof because in good time, people want to buy new cars, and in bad times they’re looking for products and services to extend the lives of their vehicles.

Streaming and programmatic technology also makes it easier for auto dealers to buy commercials in premium programming–like Speevision’s–while targeting viewers both by Zip codes and other behavioral data.

Speedvision continues to invest in programming. Popular shows on the network include relatively new shows like Radford Reborn and Helping Hands Garage. Wayne Carini, the vehicle restorer and creator of the Chasing Classic Cars TV series on the Motor Trend channels, is working on a new series for Speedvision called Catching Classic Cars, which will focus on him tracking down auto’s he’s infatuated with from sports cars to fire engines.

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