FASTMaster February 2022 Update
New insights into the world of FAST
Hello everyone and welcome to this month’s edition of FASTMaster. It was another busy month, not just for FAST but it seemed that I couldn’t go a week without moderating one or two panels, whether it was for the Variety Winter Entertainment Summit, the ongoing VIP+ NFT LinkedIn Live series, or for FAST!
Speaking of FAST, today (February 15) at 12 noon Pacific/3pm Eastern, I’m moderating a fantastic panel that you can watch here (the replay will be freely available at VIP+, I’ll add a brief update when that’s live) which is the first in the FAST FORWARD webinar series that Variety is putting together with our partner, Wurl. FAST FORWARD: What is FAST? is a discussion between myself, Wurl COO Sean Doherty Jr., A+E SVP Mark Garner and Fortune CMO Michael Joseloff full of insight for the industry.
I’ll add more about the other FAST panels at the bottom of the newsletter as it’s time to get into what everyone subscribes to FASTMaster for (and please do keep sharing this with others): FAST stats.
Let’s begin with the current status of FAST by looking at channel counts by platform.
A number of services saw pretty big increases in channel counts this month: Roku Channel, Xumo, Local Now, Plex, Tubi, Prende TV, Sports.TV and Peacock all have nice upticks in the chart.
I’m still struggling to receive data for LG Channels and NewsOn, so the following analysis doesn’t include them (and means that the wider FAST count is even larger). But for the 21 services I track by hand, there were 2,813 total channels available in February.
Is that a meaningless statistic though? It’s akin to counting each time a network appears on a different MVPD as a new figure. A more meaningful figure would be the total number of unique channels available, deduping the prior figure.
The figure for February is 1,318 channels, up from January’s 1,250. That’s a lot of choice.
There were a couple of trends I noticed in FAST as I was compiling this month’s channel list. Local news on FAST continues to heat up. ABC News launched some channels with a somewhat strange strategy of standalone apps and no FAST syndication, which I expect to change given NBCU is now throwing their hat in the ring with the launch of four FAST local news channels (NBC Boston News, NBC Chicago News, NBC Philadelphia News and NBC South Florida News). I’m sure we’ll see more local networks soon. ViacomCBS also rebranded their CBSN channels to CBS News, making it more apparent and revamped their schedule.
The other trend I noticed is that, much like last year, a number of African American themed channels appeared for Black History Month. This got me to thinking. Last year, these all vanished after the month ended, which, given FAST’s nature (there’s no limit to channel counts), doesn’t have to be the case. With several FAST services making Hispanic content a priority, my hope is that they will do the same for the African American audience, and keep these channels in their lineups year-round, not just having them as annual zeitgeist pop-ups.
That’s it for this month. Make sure you read the new Variety Intelligence Platform report that I wrote on The A to Z of Free Streaming (thanks to FilmRise for sponsoring that and making it freely available). Catch up on my FAST sessions at Prime Time (“The Rise of FAST Channels”) and Realscreen Summit Lite (“FAST Forward”).
Be on the look out for the next edition of the VIP x Wurl FAST Forward series, I believe that’s on March 8. Before then I’ll be talking CTV with Origin Media on March 3, co-hosting a VIP+ LinkedIn Live on March 1 that will be based on our 2021 Review report (looking at the companies who reported their annual earnings this month), and am a panelist at the Hollywood Radio & TV Society’s “NFTs for TV: What You Need to Know” event happening on February 17.
I’ll also be appearing at SXSW on March 11, so before the next edition of this newsletter, so if you are in Austin on the 10th and want to say hi, let me know.
Until next time,
Gavin