FASTs Are The New Cable

Announcing TVREV’s 2022 Special Report Series

Talk to industry veterans and they will tell you that TV’s booming FAST sector very much reminds them of the early days of cable, when everyone from MVPDs and broadcast networks to a new breed of cable programmer were all throwing up channels on newly hatched cable TV systems. Channels that, like the FASTs, often evoked the comment “why would anyone watch that?” 

But watch it they did, and an industry was born.

There’s one other comment we hear about the FAST sector, and that is the more or less universal complaint about just how confusing it is, especially for an advertiser, and how no one in the industry seems to be using the same words to describe the same things.

Which sounded like a very good reason to write a Special Report.

Or two Special Reports, to be exact.

The first will discuss the lay of the land, identify the structure of the emerging FAST ecosystem and identify the key players and categories, their advantages, disadvantages and chances for success.

We’ll look at:

• The multiple layers of gatekeeper

• The difference between standalone FAST apps, aggregator FAST apps and linear-like FAST channels 

• The difference between aggregator apps owned by TV networks, device OEMs and independent apps

• Why linear-like channels have become so popular and the wide range of providers whose programming populates them

• What genres do well on FASTs

• Quality vs Quantity

• The fate of original programming

• FASTs versus ad-supported subscription services

And, as always, there will be predictions about the future, including:

• Why FASTs will be the huge internationally, especially in emerging economies

• How solving the content discovery problem might create a new revenue stream for OEMS

• Consolidation and the quality issue

Plus an actual glossary of all the confusing terms.

The second report will look at advertising on the FASTs, how it is bought and sold and by whom, how it’s measured, what is working and what needs fixing, including:  

• The lack of transparency (e.g., Why Won’t Anyone Tell Me Where My Ad Ran)

• The lack of any common measurement standard

• The advantages of working with OEMs

• Programmatic versus direct sales

• The pros and cons of shorter ad pods

• Ad fraud issues and how to control them

• Branded channels and branded content

• The role of contextual advertising and the need for a common content identification tool

Followed, as always, by a look at what the future might bring, with suggestions on how to improve advertising throughout the FAST ecosystem so that it can make even more money.

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If this sounds like the sort of thing your company would like to sponsor, or if you’d like to talk to us (off the record) to share your insights, here’s where you can reach us. 

In the interim, check out this panel I am on today (Tuesday March 1, 1pm ET) about the FASTs, and our friend Evan Shapiro’s FAST map, a TVREV exclusive.

(And yes, I did come up with the term “FAST” back in March 2019 or thereabouts. We come up with a lot of goofy terms. This one stuck.)