FAST in Asia will come despite cost holding back mass deployment

For Free Advertising Supported Television (FAST) to succeed, two overriding factors must be in place.

Firstly, compelling content is the foundation for attracting and retaining viewers and operators must achieve effective reach by utilising marketing strategies to connect with audiences interested in the content, Russell Foy, CEO, FAST Channels TV, told APB+.

At FAST Channels TV, the goal is to empower content owners and TV streaming platforms to enter the FAST market. “Our unique approach involves partnering with clients through a revenue-sharing model, eliminating hefty setup and monthly fees,” Foy explained.

At the current stage of its development, Foy believes that FAST is suited for targeted deployment, particularly in countries where ad rates are higher than the costs of deploying Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) technology.

He highlighted, “While FAST is free to the end-user, there are variable costs associated with deployment, including SSAI, content delivery network (CDN), and the ad server. These three costs alone can result in a cost per thousand (CPM) of US$1 to $2.50. In markets where SSAI ad rates are below $2.50, you lose money on every stream.”

With a SSAI ad rate of $7 to $30 for programmatic ads, the US currently accounts for over 90% of SSAI ad revenues. For regions like Asia, FAST will only truly take off when SSAI ad rates are above costs to deploy.

Foy elaborated, “Until the ad rates increase, or the cost to deploy decreases, FAST projects will lose money in these markets. There is an opportunity to be first to market and to secure a viewer base, but this will need to be funded until ad rates increase.”

In the long term, FAST will not replace subscription services that offer premium content and fewer ads. However, Foy is convinced of a place for FAST, because there are viewers who, instead of paying monthly subscription fees, will rather put up with more ads to get free content.

“FAST TV is just a new technology to have TV content with ads, which has been around since the beginning of TV.

“FAST/SSAI technology is just a more efficient and profitable way to serve ads to viewers,” he concluded.