The FAST landscape has evolved dramatically from a destination for undervalued and niche content to a thriving Free TV marketplace. As the advertising market has grown, so has the competition for market share. While originally offering a lean-back experience that removes the decision-making fatigue of VOD, platforms have quickly become over-populated with the number of channels they offer, diluting their original FAST proposition. To keep themselves competitive, platforms have had to be more selective over which channels remain, promoting quality over quantity. In the US, this is particularly clear, with many services containing well over 350 channels while Tubi, one of the most successful platforms, has less than half that.

The US market is approximately 1-2 years ahead of the next biggest market. As such, more optimisation has taken place and higher rate of churn has been evident amongst less popular channels. Almost half of all unique channels that were live in August 2023 have been dropped by at least one platform within a year, with over a quarter having been pulled from all major platforms in the market. This highlights how the conversation around FAST has moved onto monetisation and advertising revenue, where platforms need to prioritise higher performing channels. In the last two years, we have seen the heightened presence from US Studios, national broadcasters and other tier 1 content owners in the FAST space, adding more prominent and premium IP to the market.
While other markets are less developed than the US in terms of size and maturity, the same trends can be seen. The UK and Germany are widely seen as two of the largest markets after the US and show increasingly levels of market maturity, with over 30% of all channels being dropped by at least one major platform in the last year. Surprisingly though, Australia exhibit the second highest level of “cancelled” channels, with a quarter of all channels no longer live on any major platform in the market. This may suggest a higher proportion of seasonal pop-up channels or event-themed channels such as for certain sporting tournaments. FAST Tracker data has previously analysed the higher amount of sports content on Broadcaster platforms like 7Plus and we will continue to investigate how they differ from other platforms with how often they refresh their EPGs.

Retiring back to the US, we can see some interesting trends regarding the types of content experiencing the most churn and attrition on major platforms. In the year preceding August 2024, movie channels experienced the highest churn rate in the US, while mixed scripted channels that contain a mixture of both films and scripted TV series had one of the lowest levels. With scripted TV channels also having a net positive growth in the same year, there is definitely no shortage of demand for scripted content, however, this trend may be a by-product of the overall increase in FAST channel quality.
The often low-budget and niche titles that are found on the original movie channels may not be generating enough viewer retention, especially now that US Studios like Lionsgate, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures have raised the bar with what they are showing. On the TV side however, lower-value and higher-volume sitcoms, soaps and telenovelas may be more immune to churn as they normally have more loyal fanbases and are a more natural fit to the lean-back FAST experience.
As the viewing habits of FAST audiences becomes more established and clear, we are starting to get a better understanding of which channels offer the highest value to platforms, who are constantly chasing market share of viewing hours. The high attrition rates of Movie channels does not necessarily indicate low demand, however, does give insight into how the quality threshold for these channels may be higher for platforms competing for ad-revenue.
