Speedvision FAST Channel Vrooms Onto Vizio Smart TVs

‘Helping Hands Garage’ (Photo courtesy of Speedvision)

Speedvision has joined the more than 300 free channels streaming through Vizio WatchFree+.

Speedvision, which focuses on cars and is racing adjacent, is the kind of channel that could fit in the booming sports category, which is becoming more and more important to the streaming world, particularly among free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) channels.

Early on, sports–live sports in particular– was a big ticket item mainly used to draw subscribers, like Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime, and now the Christmas NFL games on Netflix (which long said it wasn’t interesteed in sports). Next season, Prime Video and Peacock will be streaming NBA games.

But the FAST world has also been seeing the power of live sports and other events. Roku, for one, has a Major League Baseball package and the last Super Bowl streamed via Fox’s Tubi free streaming service.

Pluto TV, the FAST platform owned by Paramount, on Monday, said it is adding Whoppi Goldberg’s All Women's Sports Network (AWSN), a global sports television network dedicated exclusively to women's sports, to its lineup.

AWSN's dedicated Pluto TV channel is set to feature a 24/7 linear stream, including over 2,500 hours of live women's sports annually. Events include Athletes Unlimited Softball League; FIBA 3x3; FIBA 3XBA; WNBL Basketball; H1 Field Hockey; WFA Tackle Football; ECC-W, Women's European Cricket Championship; DGPT Pro Disc Golf Tour; WFTDA-sanctioned Roller Derby; and Women's Football Weekly, featuring the latest highlights from Serie A Italy, Bundesliga, Division I Féminine (French Premier League); and the Barclays Women's Championship.

Last year a FAST service called FLS (Free Live Sports) launched, which also offers live sporting events andTubi is also working with DAZN on a women’s soccer channel that will feature live games.

At its NewFront presentation, Vizio said that more live programming was on its agenda.

“Our programming decisions are grounded in real viewership behavior, not assumptions, allowing us to deliver more of what truly resonates. Looking at our data, one trend is clear. Audiences are leaning in to live moments,” said Katherine Pond, group VP at Vizio. “So this year, we're doubling down on live engagement to deepen and unlock more value for both viewers and brands. In March, we partnered with Billboard as the exclusive home of the Billboard Women and Music Awards, an event that honors the most influential women shaping the music industry today.”

In addition to live events, the amount of other sports content on FAST channels has been growing. Roku offers a sports hub for fans that includes NBA content and the NFL Network is available on a number of services including Vizio, LG and Pluto TGV.

That’s the lane where we find Speedvision at this point.

“The Speedvision viewer is drawn to the highest performing machines and technology on the market, whether that be vehicles or televisions,” said Robert Scanlon, president and CEO of Speedvision. “Our audience is naturally drawn to the quality and performance of Vizio televisions, so it’s a perfect fit for Speedvision to be streaming on WatchFree+. Starting today, if you have a Vizio TV or the Vizio mobile app, you have access to Speedvision.”

Beyond sport there’s a lot of traffic in the market for free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. It’s hard to grab the checked flag with viewers competing against 300 other channels on WatchFree+. Could be worse. On Samsung TV+, there are more than 700 FAST Channels (Speedvision is available on Samsung TV Plus in Europe.)

The proliferation of FAST channels is also a challenge for advertisers facing increased fragmentation with what many say is a lack of usable data.

While all that may be true, the news is still good for Speedvision, which was re-started in 2022 by Bob Scanlon, who originally launched Speedvision as a cable channel. The channel went through a series of twists and turns, being part of Fox Sports as the Speed Channel before being folded into FS1.

Scanlon, who had been head of motorsports at ESPN, later founded Velocity, which Discovery turned into Motor Trend.

Since its launch, Speedvision has been able to secure distribution with nearly all of the major streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Google TV, Fubo, Xumo, MyFree DirecTV, Plex, Local Now, LG Channels, TCLtv+, Dish’s Sling Freestream, Anoki, FreeLiveSports, VIDAA, and Samsung TV Plus (Europe). The auto business also provides a nice stream of endimic sponsors.

Speedvision offers more than 700 hours of automotive programming, with titles including Stacey David’s Gearz, AmeriCarna, Caffeine and Octane, Two Guys Garage, Truck U, Helping Hands Garage, What’s In the Barn?, Rutter’s Detailin’ Garage, Radford Reborn, and Zero to Sixty. It also has shows about motorcycles and aviation.

Speedvision is available on channel 1315 on Vizio WatchFree+. It will also be available through the Vizio mobile app.

Vizio was acquired last year by Walmart. While it sells Vizio-branded TV sets, the fastest growing part of its business was streaming advertising and data.

Before the deal was closed, Vizio reported that for the first three months of 2024, its platform business (data and ad sales) generated gross profit of 302.7 million, up from 258.1 the previous year as revenues rose to $526 million from $425 million.

By contrast, Vizio’s device business posted a loss of $13.1 million for the first nine months of 2024 on revenues of $709.9 million.