🔒Niche Market: Former ESPN execs launch Cheshire startup in fast-growing free, ad-supported TV industry

Traditional cable companies have been under intense pressure in recent years from various new types of competitors, including subscription-based streaming services like Netflix and Disney+, which have contributed to a cord-cutting trend.

There’s another growing niche that former ESPN executives Brendan Canning and Anthony Bailey see as a major opportunity, spurring them to strike out on their own and launch a startup.

They are the co-founders of Cheshire-based Triple-B Media, a TV and digital media company that specializes in launching free, advertising-supported streaming television channels.

By 2023, the free, ad-supported television space — also known as FAST — is projected to be a $4.1 billion industry with 216 million monthly active users, according to nScreenMedia, and there’s growing competition in the sector, with traditional mass media companies and others launching their own networks.

Well-known FAST services include Tubi, the Roku Channel and Pluto TV, which Viacom — now Paramount — purchased several years ago for $340 million.

From a quiet, unremarkable office park on Highland Avenue in Cheshire, the less-than-year-old Triple-B Media already manages, owns and operates seven 24/7 channels, primarily sports and single-genre categories, such as Fido TV, a channel focused solely on dogs, and boxing and billiards channels.

Canning and Bailey say they have ambitious plans to dive more deeply into the FAST industry, including doubling the number of channels they operate in the next few years. In coming months they plan to launch jai alai, cooking and Broadway channels.

They also want to go global and are working with distributors in Sweden, India, Australia and the Netherlands to expand their footprint and viewing audience.

With pay television subscriptions dwindling fast in the past few years (major cable and satellite TV providers lost about 4.7 million subscribers in 2021, according to the Leichtman Research Group Inc.), Canning said the time is ripe to fill the void, and he thinks Triple-B Media can compete in the space by offering exclusive niche content.

“Our goal with Triple-B is to build a strong portfolio of channels that fans want to watch on a daily basis,” Canning said. “With that singular focus in mind, we believe we can create long-term value for the company, our employees and partners. The bottom line is that we’re having fun building Triple-B into something great. We’ll see where it takes us.”

ESPN connections

Canning worked at Bristol’s ESPN from 2000 to 2012, serving as an affiliate in the sales and marketing departments, in charge of negotiating license agreements with cable and direct broadcast satellite operators throughout the country.

Canning said he left ESPN in search of new challenges and took several jobs before co-founding Triple-B Media, including at Chicago-based digital television and internet sports network Stadium, where he led TV and digital distribution strategy and deal-making.

Bailey worked at ESPN for 18 years, from 1996 to 2014, and held the title of vice president of emerging technology, where he oversaw a group of more than 150 employees and an annual budget of $100 million.

Both became friends while working at ESPN, they said.

They formed Triple-B Media in May 2021 and now have 16 employees, including a mix of editors, schedulers, programmers and sales reps. So far, they’ve bootstrapped the operation and have not taken outside investment, they said.

The company doesn’t produce content, it manages the channels it operates. It partners with content producers by forming joint ventures or revenue-sharing agreements.

The audience can watch the content on about a dozen free streaming platforms, including Roku TV, Samsung TV Plus and Xumo, which is owned by Comcast.

Canning said there are probably close to 80 million to 100 million people who have access to the FAST channels.

Advertising is the main revenue source, although the company also earns money by charging fees to content providers for operating the channels and custom design work, including editing content.

There may be one or several content provider partners per channel, Canning said.

“It depends on how much content a provider can contribute,” Canning said. “Some have hundreds of thousands of hours of content; others may only have 40 or 50 hours of content. We like to make sure we have 500 to 1,000 hours of content [per channel] before going to market.”

For example, Triple-B Media partnered with Predator Cues last summer, to help launch the billiards channel, which is the company’s most-watched station with upwards of 50,000 people tuning in on an average day, Canning said.

“Predator Cues is one of the largest billiard manufacturers in the world and they also produce scores of professional billiard tournaments throughout the world,” Canning said. “They have a library of more than 3,000 hours of professional tournaments.”

Canning said the company’s seven channels — which also include lacrosse, motorcycle racing, cornhole events and FTF Sports, which offers live coverage of worldwide professional sports leagues — have a combined 750-plus annual live events and 3,000-plus annual live hours. He said the channels have collectively garnered 4 million to 5 million viewers a month and 22 million viewers overall since they launched last year.

‘Great potential’

Triple-B Media employs a team of salespeople and uses third parties to sell the channels directly to advertisers interested in getting in front of the company’s various audiences.

For example, Canning said, the boxing channel’s target audience is men ages 18 to 34, a demographic typically coveted by advertisers.

“Most of our inventory is not sold directly by us,” said Canning, noting the company has ‘hundreds’ of advertisers across its seven channels. “We use third parties to fill the inventory and it is very specific to your geographic location. An ad you see in Connecticut is different from the ad someone may see in Texas.”

Triple-B Media also advertises its own channels on several platforms that air its content, Canning said.

Richard Hanley, a media expert who is an associate journalism professor and co-director of sports studies at Quinnipiac University, said the FAST market is growing and he believes there is a market for niche programming that Triple-B Media offers.

“I think this company has great potential,” Hanley said. “Their sort of niche programming is emerging. There is a highly-specific audience that doesn’t want to pay for it, but is willing to tolerate ads to get the content they want.”

Hanley said various media companies, including Viacom, entered this space a few years ago almost as a defensive move, and the contacts made by the Triple-B Media co-founders during their time at ESPN will significantly help them in their new endeavor.

“The fact that they know a lot of people in the content industry, specifically in sports, will allow them to make connections and accelerate partnerships and deals,” Hanley said. “It’s not something someone can come off the street and do.”

Bailey, Triple-B Media’s co-founder and CEO, declined to discuss the company’s revenues or projected revenues.

He did say the company is growing, albeit one step at a time. The long-term goal is to be a leader in the FAST space, he added.

“This industry has grown very fast and many much bigger [players] have decided to get into it,” Bailey said. “With regard to revenues, you have to be patient. We generated revenue on day one, but it was small revenue. As we grow and the marketplace trusts our channels and — as soon as the ad market understands you are serving a specific fan, genre and demographic — you will start seeing the money going from nickels and dimes to dollars and it will continue to grow.”