Bauer Media Audio shifts to CTV with Amazon Fire TV partnership

This move signals a strategic shift for traditional audio broadcasters into the high-yield connected TV (CTV) advertising market. By leveraging Fire TV's massive hardware footprint, Bauer bypasses the high costs of developing proprietary streaming infrastructure while diversifying its revenue through video-specific ad inventory. This reflects an industry-wide trend where audio-first publishers are repositioning as multi-platform media businesses to capture larger brand-spend allocations typically reserved for television. Watch for Bauer's localized execution in Germany, which will serve as a bellwether for how effectively major radio brands can transition to visual FAST environments in non-English speaking markets.

The expansion follows several strategic digital pivot points for Bauer Media Audio. In December 2025, per Bauer Media, the company integrated Audiomob’s non-intrusive in-app audio ad technology across eight European markets to reach mobile gaming audiences. Earlier that year, per RadioToday (March 2025), Bauer launched its audioXi digital advertising exchange in the U.K., leveraging first-party data from 50 media brands to offer deeper audience targeting. These moves align with a broader diversification strategy that included the $625 million acquisition of Clear Channel Europe-North in April 2025, which added 110,000 out-of-home advertising sites to Bauer's portfolio.

Amazon’s Fire TV platform provides an expansive base for these content partnerships, having surpassed 200 million device sales globally as of late 2025, according to Next TV (September 2025). The Fire TV Channels service increasingly relies on major third-party integrations to fill its FAST ecosystem; for instance, per TechRadar (January 2026), Amazon recently added 50 channels from The Roku Channel and select sports content from Fubo. This content-led growth strategy comes as CTV ad spending is projected to reach $37.95 billion in 2026, according to IAB data cited by StackAdapt (March 2026), with streaming now accounting for nearly 48% of total television viewing time.