Samsung TV Plus & ZDF Studios to launch 20 European FAST Channels

Samsung TV Plus and ZDF Studios are expanding their existing partnership and will build 20 European FAST Channels together in the future. The start is made by the launch of two new channels in Germany.

On Wednesday, October 11, two new channels will be launched on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung's premium FAST offer, in cooperation with ZDF Studios. With "Bares für Rares" ("Cash or Trash") and "ZDF kocht!" Samsung TV Plus presents two new channels that no other streaming or FAST service offers in this form. Samsung TV Plus thus expands the cooperation with ZDF Studios, which has existed since the launch of the documentary FAST channel "Terra X," to a total of three channels.

ZDF Studios expands distribution strategy
For ZDF Studios, the cooperation with Samsung TV Plus represents the expansion of a distribution strategy that sees selected highlights from the ZDF Studios catalog newly curated to serve the "lean back" needs of users. Samsung TV Plus is pre-installed on around ten million Samsung Smart TVs in Germany, providing the optimal basis for tapping into this new type of distribution.

Curiosities and cooking achieve the best ratings
"Bares für Rares" ("Cash or Trash") is one of ZDF's most popular broadcast series, Germany's biggest "junk show" and a successful format in the ZDF Studios catalog. The afternoon show about art and curiosities with host Horst Lichter regularly achieves the highest ratings on ZDF. "ZDF kocht!" is a new FAST channel that brings together highlights from the shows "Küchenschlacht" ("Kitchen Battle"), "Topfgeldjäger" ("Money Meals"), "Stadt, Land, Lecker" and "Kerners Köche." This new offering will be available around the clock, seven days a week. Cooking shows are extremely popular on Samsung TV Plus, as evidenced by the ratings for "Hells's Kitchen," Jamie Oliver's cooking show from the United Kingdom.

Refresh for "Terra X"
In summer 2022, the first collaboration between ZDF Studios and Samsung TV Plus started with the high-quality ZDF documentary series "Terra X" on Samsung TV Plus. The format and topics, such as nature documentaries, adventure, history, travel and expeditions, will remain. In addition, new program content will be added. Among the new content are "Maithink X," the popular science show with Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim; "Jahr100," Mirko Drotschmann's documentary series about the first century AD; and "Unsere Kontinente" (The Six Continents Revealed"), a mini-series about nature and culture on each continent.

Alex Hole, VP at Samsung Europe: "It has been our goal from the beginning to establish Samsung TV Plus as a premium provider for FAST programs. The cooperation with ZDF Studios is a milestone in our programming history. Content is king in the highly fragmented FAST environment, and the cooperation with ZDF Studios allows us to offer our TV viewers new premium content in the entertainment and documentary genres."

Dr. Markus Schäfer, President and CEO of ZDF Studios, adds: "For ZDF Studios, FAST channels represent an attractive business area with a wide range of growth prospects. In August 2022, for example, the "Terra X" channel on Samsung TV Plus was launched extremely successfully. We are now looking forward to launching equally successively 20 more FAST channels across Europe together with our partner Samsung, thus accelerating our FAST growth. We'll start in Germany with the formats "Bares für Rares" and "ZDF kocht!", which are ideally suited for FAST channel positioning."