Join Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York for the session “The Televisioning of FAST,” held Wednesday, October 25 at 11:45 a.m.
Shapiro dives into TV’s hottest topic, FAST, through a conversation with Justin Evans, Global Head of Analytics & Insights for Samsung Ads. Together they will delve into insights on what FAST needs to do to mature and grow into its full potential.
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
FAST is now both incredibly popular and immensely disjointed, even “more fragmented than cable TV used to be,” writes Evan Shapiro.
He nods to an nScreenMedia reports that two-thirds of American viewers now report watching FAST channels, with the caveat that the average FAST channel garnered approximately two minutes of viewing time monthly (according to data from 2021). That’s perhaps less surprising when you consider that there are more than 1,000 FAST channels in the US alone.
And they continue to proliferate in numbers and in share of viewing time. Per Nielsen, Roku, Tubi and Pluto totaled 3.4% of all TV viewing in July and 3.3% of TV viewing in August.
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
FAST revenue is also projected to explode; Omdia forecasts it reaching $11 billion by 2028 (again, in the US alone), a 208% increase over a five-year period. The researcher sees these US numbers as on the low end, with Mexico’s revenue growing by about 400% over the same period and topping off in Australia at 565%; Canada and the UK are expected to have increases more similar to the US, at 300% and 250%, respectively.
Shapiro cautions against misinterpreting the reason behind this growth (and looking at it without context). After all, it wasn’t long ago that SVOD was king and media watchers believed a hatred for ads was the raison d’être for Netflix.
“What consumers actually hated was the over-priced, inflexible cable bundle oligarchy, not linear TV, nor even the ads,” Shapiro writes. “Viewers (even younger audiences) want choice. They want a steady flow of stuff to watch. Their first (second, third, and fourth) priority is the relevancy and depth of the content they get, not the format, nor the ad load.”
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
In terms of the numbers, remember that, Shapiro writes, “in Ampere Analysis’ projection for worldwide Media revenues, [FAST and AVOD’s] 2027 total comes to approximately 25% of ‘normal’ TV advertising, less than 40% of online display ads, and a tiny fraction of social and search advertising.”
While at first blush, this may seem counterintuitive, Shapiro points out that “FAST publishers must split all their revenues with the FAST platforms, and inversely, the platforms must split their ad sales with the channel providers.”
To get around the slicing and dicing, “many of the bigger FAST platforms are cutting back on voluminous channel offerings, and moving their marbles to channels they own and operate themselves” — AKA what Pluto pioneered.
In terms of content, that means “Gone are the days of launching dozens of channels full of repurposed YouTube videos every quarter. Today, the name of the game is quality over quality, and Distinction over ubiquity,” Shapiro writes.
He predicts that 2024 FAST will feature “professional, recurring, utility programming that emulates the best parts of traditional cable TV.”
That especially makes sense given consumers’ viewpoint:They “see FAST, AVOD, SVOD, vMVPDs, and YouTube not as separate things, but as one, big smorgasbord of video content on their CTVs that they control with the touch of a button or the swipe of a thumb.”
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
In addition to programming changes, Shapiro thinks “FAST platforms must find more ways to make money than just ads. Hence Roku jumping into commerce. CTV tech allows for way, WAY more user-friendly commerce than we’re doing.”
Shapiro also advocates for “unified CTV strategy that treats their YouTube and FAST channels as two parallel lanes on the same TV highway, much as we used to see DirecTV and Comcast,” unless, of course, you’re getting paid for exclusivity rights. After all, YouTube is FAST’s biggest direct competitor.
To be adequately nimble, Shapiro says, “programmers need a holistic CTV strategy” because “consumers see media as a continuum, not a set of binary choices.”
