Nielsen's Gracenote Launches FAST Program Service

Nielsen's entertainment data provider Gracenote has launched a program to help content publishers and broadcasters get their 'Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV' (FAST) channels and programming distributed by major streaming platforms.

FAST is a category of streaming television services which offers traditional TV programming and studio-produced movies without a paid subscription, funded exclusively by advertising. Gracenote's FAST Program uses advanced data enrichment to help its customers accelerate time-to-market for their FAST offerings. Program participants that submit their channel portfolios directly to Gracenote will receive enrichment of editorial and contextual data, plus access to program imagery through which to drive increased channel engagement.

In addition, program participants receive a 'Gracenote Certified' designation, which Gracenote says gives them an advantage when pitching their FAST offerings to platforms which prefer / require standardized Gracenote metadata and IDs. This label ensures that all data meets the various requirements for the streaming platforms.

Vikram Kulkarni (pictured), VP Strategic Initiatives for EMEA, comments: 'The rapid rise of FAST has been one of the most notable recent developments in the global video ecosystem. Based on our position at the heart of this ecosystem, we are uniquely positioned to help content publishers benefit from the maturation of FAST and we look forward to helping them achieve better FAST content visibility, consumption and monetization through our program'.

Web sites: www.nielsen.com and www.gracenote.com .