TikTok could soon be coming to a Taco Bell or waiting room near you.
The platform has signed a deal with Atmosphere, a media company that licenses and curates content for more than 30 “channels” it streams to commercial clients including Taco Bell and Texas Roadhouse, and to waiting rooms and gathering spaces in places like doctors’ offices and gyms, per TechCrunch.
With the deal, TikTok is now one of Atmosphere’s channels—meaning that if a restaurant, venue, or office puts on the TikTok channel, their TV will stream video content straight from the app.
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Video content, but not audio content. See, as TikTok told TechCrunch, things will work like this: TikTok will give a team at Atmosphere a library of content to comb through. Once the team has selected videos it wants to run on the TikTok channel, TikTok will reach out to those videos’ creators for permission to use their content, and for making arrangements to credit them.
If/when a creator gives their A-OK for TikTok to use their video, Atmosphere will take the video, delete the creator’s original audio, and then will either add its own audio track or leave the audio silent and add its own captions.
Why delete the audio? Atmosphere told TechCrunch that 99% of its clients—who, again, are places like offices and gyms—stream its channels with the sound off, so the company is making an effort to create more silent content.
It does not appear that creators will be paid for allowing Atmosphere to use their content.
“TikTok has become a destination for more than a billion people to be entertained, get inspired, and find community,” Dan Page, the head of global business development for new screens at TikTok, said in a statement. “By partnering with Atmosphere, we’re excited to make it easy for people to experience TikTok together by bringing the joy and creativity of our platform to new screens, venues, and audiences.”
