FASTMaster

The January 2022 update to FASTLand

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of the FASTMaster, your trusted guide to the ins and outs of what’s happening across FAST in the U.S.

This month’s edition has been switched up a little. In lieu of the granular channel by channel counts, which at the rate of growth in FAST, would have been 3 emails long soon, I’m condensing the key trends into a couple of charts.

Before we get into that, some FAST news! The number of FAST platforms in the U.S. grew once again, with there now 23 major platforms in the U.S. with the entrance of Sports.TV in the mix.

CES didn’t happen, but a bunch of other events did. I hosted a discussion for Variety Intelligence Platform on the A to Z of Free Streaming with execs from Roku and FilmRise, which can be viewed here. I also moderated two panels for TV of Tomorrow 2022 on FAST, the first being The Opportunities of Being a FAST Platform (watch here) with execs from Tubi, Redbox, Haystack News, DistroTV and Sinclair, with the second panel Meet the FAST Distributors (watch here) with execs from Glewed TV, AMC Networks, Jukin Media, A+E Networks and FAST Studios. All had great insights so well worth a view of all three if you want to learn some more about the space.

I also wrote a commentary for Variety Intelligence Platform on trends to expect in FAST in 2022. A key data piece from that is included below, courtesy of Wurl, which shows how lucrative FAST can be for major brands (and why we should expect more to enter FASTLand this year):

Now for this month’s FAST update. The majority of tracked services added channels this month, with Vizio WatchFree+ adding the most with 17. A number of services saw channels fall out but note that these included Holiday-themed channels for most.

Also worth noting is that 6 tracked channels (plus LG Channels+ and NewsON) have 200 or more channels, and Samsung TV Plus is on the cusp with 199. The number of available channels, and choice, is astonishing and we’re not done yet by a long shot.

In terms of genres, General Entertainment were the most common channels added, meaning shows with TV shows as all or the majority of their programming. But note to the wide spectrum of total genres picked up by platforms and how services are adding different channels to offer as wide a net as possible.

That’s it for this month. A lot more concise, but let me know how you like it and if you miss the greater detail earlier editions have had.

Thanks for reading, I’m going back to watching the Wildcard Weekend and hoping Josh Allen gets a rushing TD (thanks free FanDuel bets!).

Gavin