FASTMaster April 2022 Update

The latest changes in FAST in the U.S.

Hello everyone and welcome to April’s edition of The FASTMaster, stuffed with insights and new data on FAST.

Before I begin, a small plug - I am moderating a live panel on Tuesday as part of Variety Intelligence Platform and Wurl’s FAST Forward series. Tuesday’s is on “How to FAST”, so if you have any questions about creating a FAST channel, make sure you watch it.

Now, some good news! I finally got hold of LG’s channel count, so the data set is all the more richer for that.

The last month saw 101 new FAST channels added across the many services in the U.S. Many of these were local news channels (I’d estimate 30%-40%) but the space continues to grow. With the likes of AMC Networks and A+E Networks already announcing further expansion plans, and the NewFronts around the corner, you know this figure is only headed in one direction.

The inclusion of LG Channels+ and the massive growth of Local Now means that Pluto has been dethroned as the FAST service with the most channels. The overall growth in the space means that there are now 9 services with 200 or more channels.

When you consider how far FAST has come since I began keeping a monthly tally of channel counts in October 2019—I’m not a FAST Johnny-Come-Lately suddenly taking an interest in the space because it has buzz in 2022—it is staggering to see the growth. To me, this shows that it’s not a flash in the pan. While industry execs I speak with on panels consistently suggest that they think the number of services will contract in 2022, it is an industry that’s in rude health.

A couple of things I noted in the last month:

• Branded FAST-only local news channels are becoming a bigger thing. Paramount was the first to do this with their line of CBS News {Local City] suite of channels, and NBC expanded its lineup of NBC [Local City] News channels in April. How soon until ABC and Fox jump in?

• CNN+ really should have been a FAST channel.

• At this point in time, very few FAST services lack a deal with at least one of the major TV brands with branded FAST channels.

• ViX dropped the “Prende TV” from their many Prende TV branded channels on the service, but when licensed to external services, they’ve kept it, likely because without a branded front, they look very generic. Perhaps ViX will rebrand them all to ViX in a month or two, and give me a nightmare with my spreadsheet. To make this example clearer:

  • Old channel naming style on Prende TV: Prende TV [Channel Name]

  • New channel naming style on ViX: [Channel Name]

  • New channel naming style on services licensing from ViX: Prende TV [Channel Name]

  • Gavin’s suggested channel naming style for consistency on and off ViX: ViX [Channel Name]

• Yes, IMDb TV renamed to Amazon Freevee. At first, I thought this looked ugly. Then I said it aloud and “Freevee” seems very smart. It sounds like TV, but it’s free. So I’m not joining the Haters Ball on this one. Based on a conversation I had yesterday about Tubi (people love it because it’s free), communicating that in the name directly is a smart long-term goal. Sorry I’m not bitter like some other pundits!

• DistroTV is embarking on a smart niche strategy. It already was the home for South-East Asian FAST channels, but it has been adding a lot of African-based channels for that diaspora as well.

• Roku Channel continues to be the FAST partner of choice for big media brands to launch their new channels on. Last month saw FilmRise launch three new channels only on Roku—FilmRise Anime, Black TV, and British TV—with A+E Networks also launching three—Dealzone presented by History, Perform presented by Lifetime, and Torque presented by History. It’s an interesting trend to note.

That’s all from me, have a great month and hopefully see you on Tuesday for FAST Forward 3.