Nearly half (49%) of Canadian smart TV viewers watch FAST channels and that number continues to grow with six in 10 viewers having first used the format within the last seven months, nearly one third within the last month. Those are just some of the insights unveiled today at Samsung Ads Canada’s inaugural Innovation Day event. At the event, the advertising arm of Samsung in Canada showcased a new lineup of sports, family and music content coming to its Samsung TV Plus FAST service. It also announced new solutions that enable advertisers to use AI for enhanced targeting and campaign strategies.

According to the brand, The Samsung TV Plus service has grown over 60% YoY in Canada and is now expanding its FAST offering with new programming partnerships with reality TV, family-friendly shows, animated content, French-language channels, music, news and major sports leagues like MLB. The service is adding an expanded suite of channels from A+E Networks including Duck Dynasty, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Tiny House Nation. It is also partnering with Bell Media to add 10 previously announced English and French-language channels. Samsung recently launched OutTV Proud, a FAST channel created by OUTtv and Fuse Media serving LGBTQ audiences. In addition to the Major League Baseball, FAST channel, Samsung is launching ONE Championship TV, a combat sports channel featuring  live events and behind the scenes content.

New advertising solutions that leverage the company’s proprietary data, sizeable device ecosystem, and AI technology were also announced at the event. This includes Smart Audiences, which use AI and machine learning to optimize audience segments and identify unexposed audiences; and Reach Advisor, which launches later this year. It is a post-campaign reporting feature to show advertisers who they reach with linear and AVOD buys, the overlap and who remains unreached.

Building on its advanced home screen user interface, Samsung is also strengthening its smart TV ad experience with Samsung Ads’ Content Discovery Solutions. This suite of solutions includes Samsung Spotlight and Samsung Beacon that target audiences with relevant and timely content recommendations.

Finally, the FAST Facts Canada report is a close look at how viewers are engaging with FAST platforms and what audiences think about FAST content. FAST viewing has now captured 26% of total TV viewing time. Samsung found that 74% of consumers view the content on FAST as good or better than content on linear and streaming TV. One in five FAST viewers are watching five or more days a week, and more than one-quarter of total weekly TV viewing time is spent with FAST. Nearly 40% of viewers use FAST because of its preferred content offering with movies (53%), comedy (41%,) and news (30%) among the top genres. Word of mouth (51%) is the most frequent way viewers are finding FAST, followed by it being pre-installed on their device (34%) or through advertising (13%).