How Amagi Is Solving Media’s Fragmentation Puzzle

In today’s fractured and oversaturated media landscape, the challenge is no longer just creating compelling content — it’s capturing and holding consumer attention. With audiences scattered across streaming platforms, social media, podcasts, and FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels, the old distribution playbooks are becoming obsolete.

Viewers now juggle multiple devices, endlessly scrolling through a vast ocean of content. In a world where distraction is the default, media companies and advertisers face an urgent imperative: rethink how to engage and retain audiences. Of course, that is easier said than done.

From Broadcast Dominance to a Fragmented Future

Not long ago, TV was simple. Tune in at a fixed time to one of three national broadcast networks or a few independent stations in your market. Then cable expanded the options. There were three additional broadcasters. Streaming changed how we consume content. FAST channels emerged as a new powerhouse. And social media also rewired consumption habits, with platforms like TikTok and YouTube now dominating attention spans — especially among the young viewers advertisers crave.

Meanwhile, FAST has exploded from niche curiosity to a global growth engine. Technology research firm Omdia projects FAST revenues will surpass $12 billion by 2027, signaling a profound shift in where ad dollars are flowing. So how can advertisers reach them?

Amagi’s Cloud-Powered Solution

For content owners and advertisers navigating this fractured landscape, targeting the elusive audience has never been more complex. Enter Amagi, a media-tech innovator founded in 2008, offering cloud-based broadcast and streaming infrastructure to launch, manage, and monetize content in this fragmented marketplace.

The payoff? Scalable operations, simplified distribution, and precise audience engagement — all powered by the cloud.

“Over the last seven or eight years, the biggest challenge has been the cost of being both content producer and distributor,” said Srinivasan (Srini) KA, Amagi’s co-founder and President – Global Business. “It’s like retail — Apple and Procter & Gamble sell through their own stores and third-party retailers. Media companies are similarly expanding beyond their own platforms to gain broader reach, diversify revenue, and adapt to a decentralized market.”

A veteran tech entrepreneur who began at Texas Instruments and co-founded wireless audio startup Impulsesoft, Srini now leads Amagi’s innovation, platform strategy, and scaling efforts — helping content owners survive, and ideally thrive, in a digital-first future.

“The biggest challenge — and opportunity — is this: a fragmented ecosystem with hundreds of FAST services and roughly 200,000 creators.”

When Amagi launched, streaming TV was a distant concept. “We built software for traditional networks,” Srini recalls, “but there were no streamers. Watching TV over the internet seemed far-fetched.”

Initially focused on localized advertising for cable and broadcast, Amagi pioneered geo-targeted ads well before the cloud era. “We bought national ad spots, then used proprietary tech to insert local ads in real time,” he explains.

Facing resistance from cable networks and a market dominated by a few large players, Amagi pivoted around 2016 to 2017. They began licensing backend infrastructure, letting networks handle sales in exchange for revenue share.

This shift primed Amagi for the streaming surge. Srini relocated to the U.S. in 2017 to partner with digital-first platforms and FAST services. “Our infrastructure was ready for multi-platform distribution — that’s when streaming really took off for us.”

Building Streaming’s Backbone

Geo-targeted advertising demands complex technology: distinguishing national versus local feeds in real time. Amagi developed proprietary audio and video recognition tools to scan streams and trigger precise ad insertions, which was a breakthrough in the industry.

They expanded into a full-stack monetization solution: sales teams, revenue-sharing models, and automated, data-driven ad engines. Years ahead of the curve, Amagi helped pioneer hyper-local ad delivery, which is now a standard practice.

Today, Amagi powers over 7000 channel deliveries, 500K+ hours of content 300+ content distributors and has enabled 26B+ ad impressions. Media giants like NBCUniversal, Hearst Networks UK, and DAZN rely on Amagi to scale FAST distribution worldwide — accelerating time to market and boosting monetization.

“The geo/demo/psychographic consumer models have shifted dramatically. Age has given way to lifestyle, retail to eCommerce, living rooms to portable screens, and big businesses to small disruptors. This evolution creates an enormous opportunity for companies like Amagi,” said Mike Tankel, partner/optimist at the marketing and development firm To Be Continued. “With hyper-targeting, every marketer can act like a major player—testing, learning, and scaling campaigns based on real results rather than speculative forecasts. And all of it can be done with a far more efficient budget than ever before.”

Broadcast’s Next Act

Despite streaming’s rise, Srini believes traditional broadcast still has a future. “Broadcast is far from dead,” he says. “FAST is broadcast reborn: free, ad-supported, and effortless to access — just streamed.”

“The power of broadcast was simplicity. No setup, no tuning — just turn on the TV. FAST channels follow that same principle. Plug in your smart TV, power on, and the channels are there. It’s the natural successor — the next avatar — of broadcast.”

“I’m actually very optimistic about the future of media. Unlike what we often hear in the industry, I think there’s a lot to be positive about,” he said.