Life in the FAST Lane

From the first commercial television broadcast at W3XK in Washington DC in 1928 through the inauguration of the first basic cable TV station ( WTCG ) until the launch of streaming video-on-demand (VOD) by Netflix in 2007, how and what people watch on television hasn't changed much. Television sets were how entertainment, sports, and news entered people's homes. Large networks created shows aired by their affiliates, broadcasting in communities across the country. Station and network operations, including content creation, were funded through commercial advertising. Even the programming schedule was primarily determined by the station or network's ad sales. Most stations went off the air at midnight and returned at 5 AM the following day.

As cord-cutting became an inevitable trend , the legacy networks began to look for alternatives to compete with VOD. Alternatives that didn't require consumers to pay a fee yet had a known content catalog along with a familiar look and feel.

They may have found one. Welcome to the FAST lane.

FAST is the acronym for "Free Advertising-Supported Television." It combines legacy advertising-based funding with a traditional programming model so advertisers can reach streaming consumers. Not all consumers want to pay for access to all TV shows or movies and are willing to sit through ads to access that content. Content owners, including the networks and studios who have produced entertainment shows for decades, want to monetize new and old content and FAST provides another means to do just that. So far, it's working.

Since its inception in 2014, FAST has become one of the fastest (no pun intended) growing streaming platforms in the industry today. In the US alone, the number of FAST providers has doubled in the last year. At the end of 2020, 10 FAST services were operating in the US. Today 20 providers offer 1,037+ channels that reach more consumers than all cable and satellite services combined. Audiences are responding positively to the service. Revenues are expected to reach $4.1B in 2023 from a projected 216 million active users .

There are caveats. First, no direct linear-to-streaming channel allows you to watch the same linear broadcast on a streaming device for free. Streaming of local channels is available, but not everywhere and not for free. FAST channels can include a streaming live version of a television network for "free" once you pay the subscription fee. For example, ViacomCBS' streaming platform Paramount+ includes access to a live local stream of the consumer's nearest CBS affiliate in a subscription. YouTube offers access to local channels, but only through their YouTubeTV service. So, while there is no specific charge for local channel access, a fee is required to watch those programs.

Second, FAST channels do not offer the latest content. TV shows are from past seasons. Movies are older releases. Many are so old they predate television and film age ratings or have such mild content that they require no ratings. Many FAST channels focus on a single genre. For example, some channels air only rodeo, martial arts, romance, history, documentary, or nature programs. Many of the shows are recycled content that aired on network TV channels years ago.

Third, FAST channels offer some content identical to their paid subscription-based counterparts. PlutoTV, IMDbTV, and STIRR host the game show channel "Buzzer" and cooking channel "Hell's Kitchen/Kitchen Nightmares," which are also available on paid platforms like Hulu, Sling TV, and Discovery Plus. The advantage to FAST subscribers is that if they watch these shows, they don't have to pay for them, and there's no need for a paid service subscription. Conversely, if the channel is available on a paid platform, there's no need for the consumer to sign up for an additional free service. The decision then becomes one of cost and convenience, where consumers must decide whether the cost of a paid subscription to get a channel they can get free elsewhere is worth the hassle of logging out of and into another platform every time they want to watch it.

The final advantage we'll mention is FAST does not require specific hardware, such as a Tivo+, Roku, Amazon FireStick, Google Chromecast, or comparable devices or carrier set-top boxes to access its content. It can be viewed on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, desktop and laptop computers, or smart TVs. This makes it easier for users to consume content wherever they are and with whatever device they have available without additional hardware that eventually becomes obsolete.

Historically, one of the consumers' problems with traditional linear services is the number of commercials shown during shows. The number of advertising minutes can sneak higher in popular programs to the point some people question whether the show is intended to interrupt the commercials. Questions of audience willingness to suffer through ads aren't new, yet consumers are more than willing to tolerate them if it means not paying for content. A recent report from Tubi predicts that AVOD/FAST audiences will surpass SVOD for the first time next year. During Q3 of 2021 , 35% of US streaming users accessed a FAST or AVOD service during that time, up 4% in a single quarter. If this trend continues, consumers can expect to see more similar services soon.

Analysts expect FAST to develop into a more robust platform that includes original titles, recent films, TV releases, sport multicasts, and even live streams from TV networks. Several factors will drive these changes, including audience and advertiser acceptance of the platform, resulting in more significant platform revenues and attracting larger audiences. It may be that the traditional free, over-the-air linear model has found its next phase, and consumers seem more than willing to see where it leads.

Feeding the proverbial beast of consumer demand for content will require a significant focus on curating titles that interest consumers. While large catalogs exist to feed FAST channels, a bigger challenge may be making those titles findable across platform search engines. Our next post will discuss the information that powers search: Metadata. It's a critical component of making platforms user-friendly and more content producers need to understand how it works and its significance.