The AFN Now application, launched in 2022 as the network’s first video streaming effort, has attracted nearly 100,000 registered users. (American Forces Network)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Football is good for the American Forces Network.
The military broadcasting service expects to top a million viewing hours on its relatively new streaming service this year thanks to American troops’ love of the NFL, according to AFN executives.
The AFN Now application, launched in 2022 as the network’s first video streaming effort, has attracted nearly 100,000 registered users, Kim Antos, AFN’s Florida-based broadcasting operations officer, told Stars and Stripes by phone Thursday.
“This last year was really remarkable,” she said. “We have more than doubled our users and we are on track to double our streaming hours this year over our first year of operation.”
AFN Now is available free to all Defense Department personnel and their families assigned overseas. Households can stream the app on up to four platforms, including smartphones, computers and television devices such as Roku, Fire TV Stick and Apple TV.
The service has hundreds of streams, including shows, movies and sports events, available at any time, but the magnet drawing viewers is clearly pro football, Antos said.
“For our AFN viewers its NFL, NFL, NFL,” she said. “As much NFL content as we can put there … they love it.”
The ability to stream all NFL games all season long in one place is unique to AFN, Antos said.
The most popular events streamed on AFN Now have been the Super Bowl and a recent contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills. Both netted around 80,000 streaming hours, she said.
“The NFL are so generous in what they are able to offer us,” she said. “They love being part of the mission.”
Torus Washington, an Air Force veteran shopping at the Yokota exchange Thursday, said he ditched his AFN satellite dish during a recent move between off-base homes and only watches streamed content on TV these days.
The Florida native and Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan started watching AFN Now after setting up his television to access it, but lately he’s mostly been keeping up with sports on the ESPN app, he said.
Washington said he and his wife plan to watch basketball on AFN Now. She is keen to see the Memphis Grizzlies’ new Japanese player, Yuki Kawamura, in action, he said.
AFN Now has evolved since it launched with just a stream of the network’s news channel available only to users on military bases, Antos said.
The service now works almost anywhere in the world and includes streams of both AFN sports channels as well as AFN Prime showing sports on weekends, she said.
It also offers live and on-demand content. Live-streamed NFL games, for example, may be viewed on-demand for a week. Movies and television shows can be viewed for 30 days.
“The ability to offer the audience more live events is excellent,” Antos said. “We have seen most of our customers gravitate towards live content.”
Instead of commercials, command information spots appear during AFN sports streams; fewer breaks occur during other AFN programming, about three per movie, for example, than commercial broadcasts, Antos said.
AFN tries to model its service on what the U.S. broadcast industry is doing, she said.
“AFN Now is certainly what we feel is the future of AFN television delivery, but we understand that AFN needs to be a global solution,” AFN content director James Alexander said on the same phone call.
