Galaxy 19: Unveiling North America’s Hidden Premium Audience

The free-to-air television landscape continues to be a vibrant sector of North America’s broadcast industry, with recent audience research revealing surprising strength and growth potential in satellite-delivered content. Galaxy 19, North America’s largest independent TV and radio community, brings together over 100 entertainment, news, multicultural, and faith-based channels from 30 countries in 20 languages directly to viewers’ homes.

A comprehensive new audience survey has uncovered remarkable insights about this platform’s reach and the distinctive profile of its viewers, presenting compelling opportunities for broadcasters and content creators looking to connect with specific communities.

Galaxy 19 serves an impressive 2.3 million homes across the United States and Canada, translating to more than 5.7 million viewers who regularly engage with its diverse content offerings. This satellite community has established itself as a crucial platform for FAST channels, faith-based programming, and multicultural content, delivering a single, reliable distribution solution with exceptional continental coverage. Perhaps most significantly, Galaxy 19 reaches both well-connected urban centers and traditionally underserved rural areas, ensuring content providers can access audiences that might otherwise be missed by alternative delivery methods.

What truly distinguishes Galaxy 19 is its remarkably different audience profile compared to traditional broadcast platforms.

• The survey reveals a surprisingly youthful demographic, with 67.8% of U.S. viewers and an even higher 74.2% of Canadian viewers falling between 18-44 years of age.
• This younger audience also demonstrates greater affluence, with 44.4% of U.S. Galaxy 19 households reporting incomes exceeding $100,000, while 40.6% of Canadian homes report similar income levels.
• Educational achievement among viewers is equally impressive, with 57.7% of U.S. and 66.0% of Canadian Galaxy 19 viewers having completed college degrees.

The platform’s audience also exhibits exceptional linguistic diversity and technological sophistication. Spanish is spoken in 15.0% of Galaxy 19’s U.S. homes and Arabic in 1.6%, while in Canada, French is spoken in 13.7% of households and Arabic in 6.6%.

Technology adoption rates further differentiate this audience, with over 94% of homes using connected satellite TV set-top boxes and more than 97% utilizing connected TV sets in both countries. “These metrics reveal not just the size but the quality of our audience,” notes an industry analyst familiar with the survey results. “Content providers are discovering they can reach a younger, more affluent, and technologically savvy demographic through free-to-air satellite distribution.”

Galaxy 19’s penetration into specific cultural communities is particularly noteworthy. The platform reaches 42% of U.S. households watching Arabic programming and serves as the exclusive free-to-air satellite home for most available Arabic channels. Similarly, 38% of U.S. households viewing African French programming do so via Galaxy 19, which exclusively carries all African French language channels available by satellite. The Christian programming audience also demonstrates remarkable loyalty, with 40% of viewers having switched providers specifically to access Galaxy 19’s faith-based content.

The launch of Galaxy 19’s new EPG/Audience Measurement app represents another significant advancement for both viewers and content providers on the platform. This innovation delivers an on-screen program guide enhancing the viewing experience while simultaneously enabling real-time audience measurement.

“This development is transformative for content monetization,” explains a broadcasting executive working with Galaxy 19. “Combined with the survey’s demographic insights, the app’s real-time measurement capabilities create unprecedented opportunities for programmers to quantify and monetize their audience.”

The Galaxy 19 survey results ultimately challenge conventional wisdom about free-to-air satellite audiences, revealing instead a younger, more affluent, better educated, and technologically advanced viewer base concentrated in key cultural and faith-based communities.

As the broadcast industry continues evolving across multiple platforms, Galaxy 19’s unique position connecting content providers with this premium North American audience represents a compelling opportunity for channels seeking expanded reach and engagement. With its robust distribution platform now enhanced by new audience measurement capabilities, Galaxy 19 stands as an essential component of any comprehensive North American content distribution strategy.