One thing about the world of home entertainment… it never stops providing you with new acronyms to learn. It’s the industry’s obsession with segmenting data that’s to blame. They want to make sure they can track the next big thing as it happens. So, they carve up the home entertainment markets into ever-tinier chunks, and then give each bit its own name. Of course for most of us, we just watch what we want when we want it, on whatever device we want it. We don’t give it much thought other than that.
FAST stands for…
…Free Advertiser Supported Streaming. You know someone was super proud of themselves when they came up with that one. It describes services like Pluto TV, as well as the syndicated channels on that service. They act more or less like old-school TV. There isn’t a lot of commercial-skipping, there may not be anything on-demand, but on the other hand it’s totally free to everyone. That’s pretty appealing, especially lately.
A lot of folks are looking at Pluto as an interesting experiment. The app is owned by Paramount, and they’ve created a trifecta of opportunities to see the same content. If you want to pay for an ad-free premium experience, you’ll choose Paramount+. If you’d rather choose on-demand content, you can watch Tubi and get a lot of the same stuff. And, if you’d just like a library of content presented to you live so you can dip in and out, you can choose Pluto.
FAST is… fast evolving
Just a few years ago, Pluto and other FAST services were just starting out and no one knew much about where they would go. The content wasn’t much to write home about, mostly live streams of stuff you could get other places. But the whole concept has evolved. What I really like about Pluto is how they have organized themselves. There are separate channels for a lot of shows, which means you can always find a show you like. That wouldn’t be possible with conventional broadcast TV, but it’s easy with FAST.
FAST is also becoming a home for content you couldn’t get anywhere else. If your network is too controversial to be on traditional pay TV, chances are you can find a FAST app that will take it, so long as it’s free or cheap. Because that’s the point here. FAST exists to leverage the huge amount of low-priced content out there. Apps like Pluto take that content, add commercials, and pump it out into the world. For now at least, people are willing to gobble it up.
Here’s what I find interesting
If you look at this article from years back, you’ll see that I told you that shorter commercial breaks are a key to keeping subscribers. Both Pluto and The Roku Channel must have read that article. Both show significantly fewer commercials when they have the choice. Now, there are some programs that they want to show live, and they show was originally timed out to 30 minutes including 8 minutes of commercials. They want to keep the same cadence so they have to keep the same amount of ad time. But for the most part you will find that commercial breaks on FAST are 90 seconds give or take. Compare that with AMC which gives you 5-6 minutes of ads in a row on their top shows. That is a huge difference. I’ll take 90 seconds of ads if I want to watch something, but if I have to wait an astounding 360 seconds between segments, I’ll be more likely to record. And if I do record, chances are I’ll watch sometime after the critical 72-hour window when shows get their ratings recorded.
FAST as a model for off-air TV
I think local broadcasters could learn a lot from FAST. Right now, some of the largest companies in the broadcast space are pushing ATSC 3.0 because they want to air more targeted ads. Maybe they need to learn that if you maximize the ad time you have, rather than expanding it, you might do better.
There’s no question that we’ll see some sort of shakeup in local TV in the next decade. It’s getting to the point where even the most jaded TV station owners can’t ignore their shrinking slice of the pie, and they’re going to need to make changes in order to survive. I hope that they all think hard about how FAST is succeeding, and then put that knowledge to good use.
