Frndly TV Reports 53% Year-Over-Year Viewership Increase During Third Quarter
It’s that time of year when TV watchers are looking for cozy, comfortable content to keep them warm heading into the holiday season, and there’s only one live TV streaming service that caters directly to those specific customers. On Wednesday, skinny-bundle Frndly TV announced its third quarter viewership and usage totals, reporting that the live streamer saw a 53% increase in total viewership from Q3 2021 with viewing time per subscriber jumping 9%.
The streamer’s third-quarter totals come on the heels of it seeing a 58% year-over-year increase in time spent on the service during Q2. Frndly also reported a 40% increase in terms of active weekly users compared to the same quarter from the previous year.
“Since its launch in October 2019 … Frndly TV has demonstrated growth in each quarter of its existence,” the company said in its viewership release. “For the third quarter of 2022, that trend continues. While July, August and September (3rd quarter) are generally ‘down’ in the TV industry, Frndly TV bucked the historical trends.”
Compared to other live TV streaming services, which tend to ebb and flow around sports seasons — primarily football — Frndly TV concentrates on affordable, family-friendly programming highlighted by networks like the Hallmark Channel, Great American Family, A&E, the Game Show Network, Lifetime, The Weather Channel, and more.
With the holiday movie season officially underway for many of those broadcasters, this is an especially good time for cord-cutters to check out Frndly. After a seven-day free trial, the service runs just $6.99 per month. Frndly TV also reported that the growth was not contained to just Q3 as it kicked off the fourth quarter of the year seeing a 55% rise in viewership for the month of October compared to 2021 as Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas and GAC Family’s Great American Christmas events officially got underway this month.
Related: Holiday Movie Roundup: All of the Christmas Films from Hallmark, Great American Family, Lifetime, Netflix, More
Coincidentally, just a day before the release of the Q3 data, Frndly TV announced a number of new changes to its platform, specifically in terms of how customers can find titles on the service and how they can watch their saved content. Over the summer, the streamer made multiple upgrades specifically at the request of its customers, living up to its friendly name.
Check out updates to Frndly TV’s user experience:
On more of the business side, Frndly reported that it had seen a 129% year-over-year increase in ad sales revenue and a 133% improvement in ad impressions.
“These numbers demonstrate the accuracy of the underlying premise that our co-founders created Frndly TV on: Give American consumers good, wholesome, brand-safe TV at a fair price,” Frndly TV head of advertising sales Steve Sklar said. “We are delivering on our promise to our subscribers — who are highly engaged with our product — and as a result, over-delivering on our promise to our ever-growing list of advertisers.”
Since its launch, the service has been open about its goal of providing family-friendly content at a wallet-friendly price. Earlier this year, the company reported only 40 employees with the hopes of keeping operational costs as low as possible in order to pass those savings on to consumers. As evidenced by making specific changes based on customer recommendations, the streamer also feels that having direct interaction with subscribers is vital to its success.
Frndly TV
Frndly TV is a live TV streaming service with over 40 channels for $7.99/month. Each plan is designed to provide a skinny bundle of family-friendly channels at a reasonable price. The service will appeal most to fans of Hallmark channels. It does not offer news, sports, or local channels.