FAST remains one of the most exciting and dynamic areas of streaming, which is why our One Touch Intelligence researchers and analysts spend so much time tracking FAST ad loads, genre trends, platform strategies, and beyond. In our third installment of our FAST-focused DEEPDive whitepaper series, “Fast & Curious 3: Video Drift,” we dove into advertising metrics, advancing technology, content strategy, and FAST’s place in the overall streaming marketplace.
FAST gets a little less chaotic every day as its “wild west” M.O. becomes, dare we say, more mature. That trend will likely continue as brands demand the same clarity, transparency, interactivity, and targeting that they enjoy within AVOD environments. FAST isn’t there yet, but it gets closer every day and remains impossible to ignore in the meantime: As of June, we counted more than 1,900 unique FAST channels from major U.S. aggregators alone.
At the same time, open programmatic exchanges that built the FAST industry are starting to shift toward more direct selling through private exchanges that emulate the first-party buying experience on traditional platforms. At IAB’s Newfronts in May, Fox’s Tubi FAST/AVOD streaming service announced a new self-serve platform in which brands can buy directly through Tubi. Smart TV platform Vizio launched MyHub that enables first-party buying and integration into specific consumer hubs. And on May 29, Fubo even added pause-ad capability to its own first-party platform.
Meanwhile, Comcast’s Universal Ads just started enabling marketers to programmatically buy scalable, performance-driven ads “as easily as they buy from social media platforms” on traditional linear platforms. So, as linear TV tries to become more accessible with more automated buying, CTV platforms like FAST are increasingly attracting larger brands with their own first-party exchanges that offer more control over pricing, placement, and other factors.
In addition to more sophisticated buying platforms, we’re also starting to see better numbers and consistency on ad frequency, repetition, and unfilled time, according to audits conducted for our StreamTRAK video intelligence service. Consider that in Q1 2022, our auditors logged between 3.7 to 12.2 ad minutes per hour, but by Q1 2025 we had found a much narrower range of 11.9 to 14.3 minutes per hour. Most FAST platforms now average 12-13 ad minutes per hour, which greatly exceeds the mostly seven minutes or less we find in our audits of AVODs but falls below traditional linear TV’s typical 18 or so minutes of ads during a one-hour show.
Also improving is unfilled time (often depicted as a blank screen or a “We’ll be right back” message), with our auditors noting a general decline in unfilled time since Q1 2022 when FAST channels often failed to fill 12-15 minutes per hour, with even the best performers still well above five minutes. But our latest audits found even the worst offenders only reached about 10 minutes while most were well under five.
We’ve also seen a significant rise in paid ads over the last three years, corresponding to the aforementioned drop in unfilled time. In 2022, our auditors found that only 36% of hourly ad time went to paid ads, with 40% of available time unfilled. Contrast that with the first five months of 2025 in which 59% of ads qualified as paid vs. only 16% of time going unfilled. It’s a dramatic shift, and it operated independently of promo ads that remained relatively steady, making up 23% in 2022 and only slightly more (25%) in early 2025.
FAST ads are also becoming more interactive, with our auditors finding that in 2025 advertisers ranging from FanDuel to Credit Karma to Otezla to Toyota all ran interactive pause ads incorporating QR codes. While AVODs still generally offer more sophisticated clickable ads that fuse e-commerce into the spot itself, FAST continues to take baby steps toward parity. We expect Amazon will push the industry even more down this road, along with Walmart now that the retailer owns smart TV player Vizio and its SmartCast platform.
FAST’s ad tools, flexibility, and measurement remain cruder than its on-demand counterparts, but it’s starting to catch up in terms of interactivity and targeting - even if the major platforms still report more day-to-day usage on the AVOD side. Of course, to what degree consumers actually watch FAST within UI environments may matter less than the benefit of simply having them there and available. Just in case. In that way, FAST has become less of a standalone service and more of an integrated platform sweetener. No offense, FAST. But you’re starting to blur into the streaming matrix.
(Click here to download a complimentary copy of our Fast & Curious 3: Video Drift report).
Michael Grebb is Senior Vice President and Lead Analyst for One Touch Intelligence, which provides market intelligence and industry analysis services for leading companies in the media and telecommunications space.
The One Touch Intelligence STREAMTRAK series is a complimentary service offering industry professionals insights and context around developments in the digital media sphere.
Industry Voices are opinion columns written by outside contributors — often industry experts or analysts — who are invited to the conversation by StreamTV Insider staff. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.