Linear free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) is booming. FASTs allow viewers to watch streaming content for free and either on-demand, or increasingly, as a linear channel that leverages VOD content.
The FAST concept is not new. AVOD (advertising-supported video on demand) services have been around for a number of years and are expected to continue to grow for several more years, with expenditures reaching $66 billion across 138 countries in 2026. But FAST services offer ad-supported video content using dynamically inserted ads to provide linear channels to connected devices. This allows them to reach more users and thus expand their reach, diversify their revenue sources and in turn improve their users’ experience, being able to offer them more personalized content by obtaining more data from their subscribers than is possible with an AVOD model, and therefore increase user loyalty to the service.
In the era of peak TV, with Netflix alone creating more content than the entire TV industry used to, this is a smart strategy to attract viewers.
Another reason why giants like Viacom, Comcast or Fox have paid huge amounts of money for brands like Pluto TV, Xumo or Tubi, is to increase their reach and get to younger audiences that do not consume linear TV and are simply more likely to use these types of services, seeing as they are typically on tighter budgets and may not want to pay the monthly fee for SVOD services.
The question is, how do you connect with the audience by launching FAST channels, gain their loyalty and achieve maximum reach?
- You need to know your audience’s needs and tastes, even better than they do!
- You need to know every detail of how your channels are watched: share, reach, completion rate, views, average viewing time, most popular shows, etc.
- To optimize your monetization you need to know everything about how your ad-supported business model is performing: ad frequency, reach, view and viewing time, etc.
By understanding how your video service performs and how your audience behaves you can launch hyper-segmented campaigns to optimize the performance of your ad business and marketing activities, and improve audience engagement by offering them the best experience with your service.
Learn more on how Jump FAST insights can help your free ad-supported streaming TV service better understand its users and personalize your impact on them. Book a demo here.
