AdTech Company TriCoast Media Serves Up Horror Movies With Film Festival

Ad-tech can be a frightening business but TriCoast Media isn’t afraid.

In fact it's holding a horror-movie film festival next week, featuring Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself, a figure as scary as any walled garden.

TriCoast’s ad-tech business was spawned out of TriCoast Entertainment, a content distribution company with a 5,000 title library, CEO Nick Risher told The Measure.

The company’s movies started appearing on connected TV platforms like Roku, Tubi and Vizio. Soon after, the company decided to launch its own free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel, called Dark Matter TV, which features horror films from producers like Magnolia, as well as its own titles.

TriCoast found itself with advertising inventory to sell on its AVOD and FAST channels. But it found its fill rate was low, limiting the revenue the channels generated, Risher said. Rates, on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis, were low as well. 

So five years ago TriCoast went out and got itself its own ad server.

“We quickly realized we had something valuable here,” Risher said. “I also quickly realized that I didn’t have enough inventory on my own. So we started reaching out to other publishers that had horror supply.”

TriCoast Media now works with more than 250 partners and it handles not just video, but audio and digital outdoor as well. 

It works with LiveRamp and Subjective for targeting and Human to eleminate invalid traffic. It also provides supply to demand partners Epsilon, FreeWheel and PubMatic.

Risher says unlike traditional ad-tech platforms, TriCoast takes what he calls a publisher-first approach.

On its website, TriCoast Media touts it has a better way to buy CTV ads, offering “direct access to 250+ publishers. Flexible creative. Hand-on support. No DSP markups, no black-box platforms, no wasted impressions.”

 It has a direct-sales organization that meets with advertisers and is able to offer them a lower price than other platforms. But more of that money goes to publishers because TriCoast cuts out the middlemen, who can collect as much as 30% of what the advertisers pay to air a spot, according to Risher.

“We bring that demand to the publishers directly, so we’re not having a DSP or SSP in the way,” he said.

The other content distributors were also more comfortable working with a fellow publisher, which also helped TriCoast Media get better rates for brands.

“Filmmakers trust filmmakers, right,” Risher said. “And being small helps. We’re small but nimble.”

TriCoast is looking to build up its CTV business. Last year it launched another FAST channel, “Made It Myself TV" for DIY enthusiasts, and it has more in the works.

And its other venture is the film festival, designed to boost awareness of the Dark Matter channels among consumers and Tri-Coast’s ad tech capabilities among the distributors whose films will be showcased.

The event is being promoted with a video featuring a Tom Cruise look alike who recreates the actor's most famous roles. 

"It’s October. That’s our best time for Dark Matter,” Risher said. “People want to come to the festival. They can log into the app, then tune into the channel and they see what’s going to happen at the festival."

The festival will have a panel on the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise featuring Englund and a screening of Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.

More than 200 films have been submitted to the festival and 15 of them will be screened at live showings.

Judges, including directors Rachael Talalay and Jack Sholder, actors Kristina Klebe and Greg Sestero, and producers Sara Risher and Jeffrey Reddick, will decide which film earns the $10,000 distribution prize from TriCoast. Some of the films from the festival will become Dark Matter originals and appear on the channel.

The Dark Matter Film Festival takes place in Culver City, California, October 28-30. 

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Sponsors for the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards were announced by NBCUniversal.

New to the show are Verizon, McDonald's, and Johnson & Johnson’s Tremfya.

Those brands join returning sponsors Volkswagen, Walmart and State Farm.

Last year, the show was the No. 1 program across Spanish-language cable and broadcast with 111.6 million cross-platform engagements. NBCU said that brands got a 27% bump in ad memorability, 15% gain in message memorability and a 36% advantage compared to competitive norms. 

"As one of the most influential celebrations in Latin music, the Billboard Latin Music Awards brings audiences together around shared community and passion," said Mark Marshall, Chairman, Global Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal. "Alongside our brand partners, NBCUniversal is creating culture-defining moments to engage viewers both on the awards stage and across platforms."

The 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards will be broadcast on Telemundo October 23. The show will be livestreamed on the Telemundo App and Peacock and appear in Latin America on Telemundo Internacional.