Rejoice, it's time for the FASTMaster

September 2022's FAST update and preliminary industry survey results

Hello to all the FAST fans out there, and an extra special hello to anyone who caught me keynoting about FAST at Google’s Video Advisory Council last week ( a big thanks for having me to Google. Can’t go wrong keynoting in a room called “Goblin King”).

In the coming month, you can see me at the TV of Tomorrow show in San Francisco on October 12th, then I’ll be in Cannes for Mipcom on October 17th and 18th, hosting four panels across the two events, all on FAST naturally. Savage travel but it’ll be worth it to see the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean within a few days. Something you could only dream of even a hundred years ago if you were a sorcerer.

But onto FAST. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but FAST keeps growing.

:o

FRFR, it just doesn’t stop. Here’s the current number of channels being offered by major services in the U.S. It is staggering.

At this point I think we’re going to close out 2022 with Xumo and possibly Samsung TV Plus joining the 300 club. Tubi’s coming in with intent to get over 200 channels.

This is something you wouldn’t have expected when I first began to note down the monthly channel counts 3 years ago. Yes, it has been 3 years now. This thing has been going longer than COVID-19 and remains a wonderful way to graphically show the rise of FAST.

This translates to an ever-rising number of channels available for inclusion on a FAST service. We’re at 1,555 for September.

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who answered my plea to take my short survey on what FAST is. If you haven’t already - let’s goooo: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RVSVTZF

I wasn’t expecting it to get the attention it did. What I would say is that creating an industry-geared survey for an audience that’s primarily in the industry (who else would read this, let’s be serious, this is for people interested in FAST and that’s it) isn’t going to be “random sample”, but results should be seen as reflective of sentiment within the industry.

I think it’s important to reflect how the industry thinks. Based on the results of this, and my observations whenever reading content from industry execs or the numerous occasions I have discussions with them at conferences or when I am hosting panels or webinars, FAST has become synonymous with linear streaming channels (gasp!), whilst AVOD is considered to be on-demand content.

If anyone’s reading this who wants to recast the world, try by all means, but it may be an uphill battle if so many industry execs already consider it to mean lean-back, linear viewing.

Results are below, as are the full open-ends in case you are curious and would like to see how industry insiders define FAST and AVOD. If enough people take the survey, I’ll update next month. But note how many of the responses come from people working within FAST… I wouldn’t call this a random bunch of outsiders.

But that’s not all for this month. Within a week or so, I’ll have a special report to share with you all here based on some research I recently conducted at Maru. If you like FAST, you’ll love what’s coming. Until next time, Gavin.