Ionic Studios and Questar Entertainment Form Joint Venture to Operate GoTraveler, North America's Largest Travel Channel on Free Streaming Television

Partnership combines GoTraveler's category leadership and an iconic travel programming library with Ionic's operating apparatus, audience platform, and direct buyer access, sharpening one of CTV's most engaged genres into a destination environment for travel advertisers.

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Ionic Studios LLC ("Ionic") and Questar Entertainment Group, Inc. ("Questar") today announced the formation of Ionic Questar Holdings, LLC, a joint venture to operate, monetize, and grow GoTraveler, North America's largest travel channel on free ad-supported streaming television. Under the partnership, Ionic serves as Publisher of Record and brings its full operating apparatus to the channel, while Questar contributes the GoTraveler brand and a content library built over more than four decades. Both companies are equally invested in establishing GoTraveler as the definitive travel destination on connected television.

GoTraveler is one of the most established channels in the FAST ecosystem, distributed across DIRECTV, LG Channels, VIZIO WatchFree+, Xumo, Sling TV, Dish Network, Plex, and additional connected television platforms across the United States. The channel runs 24/7 programming spanning destinations on six continents, with a content slate that balances destination guides, culinary travel, cultural immersion, and adventure programming. It is, by design, a lean-back, aspirational, brand-safe environment built to keep travel-engaged viewers on the screen.

What sets GoTraveler apart is the library behind it. Questar has been building travel and lifestyle programming since 1985, and the channel draws from a catalog that includes some of the most recognizable franchises in the category, among them Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, Rick Steves' Europe, Exploring Mexico's Kitchen with Rick Bayless, Smart Travels with Rudy Maxa, Curious Traveler, Dream of Italy, and America's National Parks. The result is a channel with a clear editorial identity and a viewer who comes back to it intentionally, in a market where most travel inventory in FAST is recycled, thinly packaged, or sold against broad demographics.

Ionic brings the operating apparatus of a modern connected television publisher: ad operations and demand integration, agentic ad serving, SSP and DSP relationships, direct sales execution, and platform-level distribution expansion. Audience identification across GoTraveler runs on Ionic's behavioral and contextual platform, surfacing high-intent travel viewers, both active travelers and those in the planning window, without relying on demographic assumptions alone. Buys can be structured through Ionic's iX Access framework, giving travel brands, hospitality companies, online travel agencies, destinations, and financial services advertisers direct and transparent access to GoTraveler inventory rather than navigating opaque exchange supply.

The partnership comes as FAST audiences in the United States are projected to reach 131.4 million in 2026, accounting for 54% of all connected television users (eMarketer), while U.S. travel industry digital ad spend is on pace to approach $9.4 billion this year, nearly double its 2021 level. Travel as a category has the audience curve and the advertiser curve, but FAST has largely treated it as filler rather than a genre worth building. Ionic and Questar are taking the opposite view, and putting the operating investment behind it.

"GoTraveler has built something genuinely rare in FAST: a channel with a clear editorial identity and a viewer who comes back for it intentionally," said Shafi Mustafa, Managing Director of Ionic Studios. "That is the kind of supply that deserves better than open-auction CPMs and broad-stroke demographics. With this partnership, we are putting GoTraveler in front of advertisers who understand the difference between reaching someone and reaching someone in the right moment, and we are building the channel into the destination the travel category has been missing in connected television."

"GoTraveler is the connected television expression of a travel content business we have been building since 1985," said Jonathan Plowman, Chief Executive Officer of Questar Entertainment. "Partnering with Ionic gives us the monetization, distribution, and commercial execution to scale that work the way it deserves, in front of the travel advertisers who should be in this environment. We are aligned with the Ionic team on what GoTraveler can become in CTV, and on the path to get there."

The joint venture begins immediate work across three fronts: platform distribution expansion into additional FAST endpoints, content investment to deepen and refresh the GoTraveler programming slate, and direct advertiser activation across the 2026 and 2027 commercial cycles. Both parties are invested in the long-term growth of the channel as a category-defining destination on connected television.

About Ionic Studios

Ionic Studios is the studio for the open streaming ecosystem. The company assembles a scaled portfolio of exclusively represented, brand-safe FAST channels into a single, unified buying system, bringing the consistency, reach, and activation standards advertisers expect from premium walled gardens to the open CTV market. Ionic builds the portfolio through three paths: channels it owns and operates, joint ventures with content partners, and exclusive strategic partnerships with leading independent studios. The portfolio today reaches more than 100 million U.S. households across 94 exclusively represented channels, with over 250 million hours streamed monthly and 5.2 billion monthly ad impressions. For more information, visit ionic.tv.

About Questar Entertainment

Questar Entertainment, founded in 1985 in Chicago, is a media company specializing in travel and lifestyle content. Its flagship asset, GoTraveler, is the largest travel channel on free ad-supported streaming television in North America, distributed across the major FAST platforms in the United States. GoTraveler's programming spans destinations on six continents and draws from a library of iconic travel franchises developed across four-plus decades of category-defining production. For more information, visit questarentertainment.com.

Media Contact
Ionic Studios
Warda Baig
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SOURCE Ionic Studios