Benzinga | Sep 22, 2020 02:46PM EDT

Cinedigm, AudPop Report Shorts Channel

Cinedigm (NASDAQ:CIDM) announced today a partnership with AudPop to launch the "Shorts Channel," a streaming channel featuring the best short films from around the world. The OTT channel will be made available in North America initially, with territory expansions planned, as a free ad-supported television channel (FAST) and on ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) platforms for connected TVs, digital set-top boxes, media-streaming devices, and web-based services across Cinedigm's global footprint of more than 670 million devices. Cinedigm will offer the channel to more than 60 partners globally, including distribution partners such as Vizio, Samsung, Xumo, Tubi and more.

Offering over 1,000 hours of content from 12,000 films, the channel provides viewers a variety of programming genres and subject matters from comedy, animation/anime, horror & Sci-Fi, LGBTQ, romantic comedies, documentary, made-by-women, African American, social justice, inspirational as well as faith & spirituality.

Title Examples:

"Wednesday" by Noor Lawson featuring Bryan Cranston

"Shelter" directed by Daniel Hanna featuring Clea DuVall

"The Good Mother" by Sarah Clift

"Tis of Thee" by Quentin Robinson

"She's Revolutionary" featuring Trana Burke and directed by Brittany B. Monet

"AudPop has established itself as a leading curator of short films from around the world," said Tony Huidor, General Manager of Cinedigm Networks. "We are excited to showcase the high-quality films created by emerging, talented filmmakers by sharing more than 12,000 short films with viewers across our expanding list of distribution partners."

"As the success of Tik Tok, Facebook Watch and HBOMax have shown, short-form entertainment content captures billions of minutes consumed each month," said Erick Opeka, President of Digital Networks, Cinedigm. "Our partnership with AudPop will bring 12,000 titles of the world's highest quality short-form films to market at a time that Telcos, TV & handset manufacturers, and others demand compelling, original shorts to entertain and retain their customers."

"At AudPop we believe that real stories can change the world, which is why we are so excited to partner with Cinedigm to bring our diverse and talented filmmakers stories to audiences everywhere," said AudPop Founder & CEO, Paige Williams.

Cinedigm continues to focus on bringing well-established brands and film & television content from leading content owners into the rapidly growing, free ad-supported television marketplace. Consumer interest in premium content remains strong within the OTT ad-supported space as traditional cable and satellite services continue to lose subscribers seeking low-cost alternatives and new options for their entertainment needs.