Phileas FASTMaster Fogg

The World Tour of FAST Continues

Hello to all the FASTites out there. I’ve been back from Australia for 7 days, so naturally it is time to head out on another foreign adventure today to MIPTV at Cannes.

I’ll be the host for the first ever FAST summit MIP’s ever put on, which is a pretty good honor. It also means that in the first four months of 2023, I’ll have been invited to speak about FAST in Canada, Australia and France as everyone specifically has asked me to talk about channels (not AVOD content).

Not only am I on MC duties on Tuesday, but I am co-presenting with the incredible Marion Ranchet on Key Trends in Global FAST. If you’re going to be at MIPTV and have more than a passing interest in what’s going on in FAST then you really should swing by as this will be a fantastic overview of things to keep up with. It’ll be the quickest 25 minutes of your life.

The Future of TV Advertising Sydney was a great event (I am beginning to think I need more than one headshot, this is becoming a bit totalitarianistic with the amount of times this is cropping up, and it’s not going to get better before this email ends). I gave an overview of the global FAST market that was very well received as well as diving into the current state of the Australian market. Samsung’s publishing a report later this week which I’ll share when it’s available because the market is one of true opportunity. I think I’ll be paying attention to the Australian market again sooner than later…

In case you missed it, a couple of things were published based on my trip to Australia, which not only are informative but perfect to read if you already forgot that picture of me above:

MI3 put together a great overview of what I presented at the conference: https://www.mi-3.com.au/05-04-2023/fast-tv-300m-market-within-four-years-australians-stop-wasting-100-days-trying-decide-0

MediaWeek conducted an interview with me and Alex Spurzel, the head of Samsung Ads ANZ: https://www.mediaweek.com.au/why-australia-has-a-much-better-handle-on-fast-channels/

We also gave an interview to Mumbrella: https://mumbrella.com.au/economic-uncertainty-and-fallback-watching-buoys-fast-channel-growth-in-australia-782929?

It’s been busy at VIP+ too amidst the travel, with several articles published in the last few weeks on various aspects of FAST:

The State of English-Speaking FAST Worldwide https://variety.com/vip/the-state-of-english-speaking-fast-worldwide-1235570937/

How AVOD, FAST and SVOD Fit in Modern Distribution https://variety.com/vip/how-avod-fast-and-svod-fit-into-modern-distribution-1235570943/

Breaking Down Google’s FAST Move https://variety.com/vip/breaking-down-googles-fast-move-1235582654/

I’m sure there will be more in the aftermath of MIPTV!

I also wanted to share this, which I put together in the prep for MIP, to show that the number of channels in the U.S. just keeps growing and growing:

Will 2023 peak at 1,800 is the question on the lips of the true disciples of FAST. I guess we might get a good idea at the Newfronts, but it’s not hard to imagine that happening through a combo of local news, music videos and single IP channels.

That’s all I have for today. See some of you in Cannes, stay tuned here for some files from the various adventures, and thanks for reading!