What Are FAST Platforms?

…Asking for a friend.

FAST stands for “free ad-supported television” (FAST). These platforms saw a 40 percent jump in new visitors this year.

Why? Because of subscription fatigue. People are willing to endure added commercials while watching streaming services to avoid an additional reoccurring monthly fee.

Revenue from FAST platforms grew almost 20 times from 2019 to 2022 to more than $4 billion, according to research firm Omdia. The same report found that FAST revenue is expected to triple again by 2027 to $12 billion.

Monthly active users on Fox-owned Tubi have skyrocketed in the last three years from 25 million to 64 million. Meanwhile, CBS Paramount’s FAST platform, Pluto TV, has gone from 12 million monthly active users in 2019 to 80 million in 2023.

Warner Bros. Discovery moved movies and shows like Westworld off Max and onto Tubi in January, bolstering the more than 50,000 titles available on the platform.

FAST is not only old reruns of hit shows though. Original content is becoming a bigger part of the FAST environment, with Amazon Freevee’s Jury Duty exploding onto the scene this year.

Danielle DeLauro, executive vice president at the VAB, recently said, “At this point, consumers follow content. I think that there is some brand loyalty to the platform, but I think really what consumers are doing now is they’re cherry- picking and hunting and pecking according to what content they want to see. We’re seeing that content discovery is really one of the keys to streaming. ‘Oh, I heard that the show is good. So what platform is that on?’”