FAST Attrition for December
Hello everyone. I’m waiting on a bit of data that I need for the full FASTMaster update which will be coming later this week, but didn’t want to sit on what I had collected earlier. So for now, here’s an update on everyone’s favorite topic: attrition!
For this analysis, I had to have data for a service in December 2022 and 2023. So there’s no Google TV here, for instance, as that launched in April 2023. STIRR’s an outlier as it’s clearly dying, so if we remove that from the data we find that on average 16.5% of channels which were active in December 2022 on a platform are no longer carried.
(I guess I should calculate this for December 2022 and 2021 at some point to show how that stacks up… watch this space).
A number of services have embarked on large expansions of their FAST channels this year, so I don’t find a correlation between size and attrition. Pluto for instance is remarkably stable, whereas LG has been pruning the lineup much more than most. Sling Freestream has added hundred of channels this year but also swung the axe on over 20% of the channels they featured a year ago.
Sling actually added the most channels to a service (year-over-year) this year, with 345, followed by Freevee (258) and Plex (219). The stability of Pluto is apparent as it focuses more on internal channels versus 3rd party acquisitions.
Pluto’s one of the few services I have data going back to 2019 for (at least for them only on a total channel basis, for the others I can get into genres and channel names). Interestingly, someone asked me this week about a rumor they’d heard that Pluto might be for sale amidst the whole “Paramount is bankrupt” whisperings. Personally, I can’t see why Paramount would sell as it is the only part of streaming making them good money and the value is intrinsically linked to the CBS and Viacom libraries powering its exclusive channels. (I mean, if you wanted to buy the service and then just take it over with your existing one to get a bigger market share, that’s the only feasible buyer I can see - must have own content library).
Here’s five years of FAST trends for the other services I have data going that far back for, just so we can marvel at the growth of the format.
Roku’s touching 500 channels making it a legitimate beast and almost double the channel count from two years ago and roughly 9x the channels from 2019.
Samsung’s growth is in part due to adding more local news channels but it has also expanded entertainment offerings, and owned & operated channels have been a key part of that.
Xumo has almost doubled the total channels seen since 2019. The inclusion of many NBCU channels this year will give it a strong boost for Specrum and Xfinity subscribers discovering it via the newly distributed Xumo Stream box. Xumo’s on my “ones to watch” list for significant user growth in 2024.
That brings this edition to a close. There will be more later this week, in the spirit of festiveness, with more likely to come before the end of the year. I have a lot of analysis to share, so stay tuned!