Head of Marketing | Brand Builder | Consumer Storyteller | Digital Creative Strategy | Collaborative Leader | CMO, Fantom Foundation | ex TikTok, Apple, Warner Bros, Fox, Sony | MBA
Let’s re-run it back? An interesting and thorough love letter about the rise of FAST darlings Pluto, Tubi and Roku. While analysts have been touting the financial prospects of these platforms (and their acquisitions look better and better with each monthly Gauge report), I remain a little skeptical. Consider: 📺 Article about the stratospheric growth focused on Roku, Pluto and Tubi, all of whom will def be winners. But what of the remaining 16 that provide largely commodified content. How do they separate and get into this top tier that's dominated by YT? There are 5,000 FAST channels across 18 services. Most of these channels, therefore, are replicated across multiple FAST services rendering the platforms undifferentiated. Sounds like the Highlander to me. 📺📺 To wit, the author indicates that "While users may have initially been drawn in by the prospect of a free service, they’re now sticking around because of the quality of content." Really? I am sure that comfort-watching reruns is fine, I am hard pressed to call it transformational. Moreover, 40% of Tubi viewers don’t subscribe to other paid streaming services which means either cable or rabbit ears. (Not sure that is the kind of audience advertisers look at as "premium"). Charter/Comcast/Xumo research indicated 72% of FAST viewers also watch cable or broadcast TV and 86% subscribe to at least one paid streaming service so maybe this isn’t quite the untapped market Tubi’s data suggest. 📺📺📺 What I do appreciate and am bullish about FAST is their ability to super-serve specific audiences with specific content like Korean soaps, telenovelas, surfing and kickboxing (for me), etc., at very low cost. That is smart way to drive viewership instances (if not total viewership minutes) but likely not unique to each service, given the commodification of these deals. https://lnkd.in/gW-ueu7H
Marketing and Strategy Professional | Ex-Paramount | Ex-Warner Bros Discovery
1moIt'll be interesting to see how much of those shifting traditional TV dollars move to FAST platforms. With an increasing amount of SVODs introducing ads, there is only so much budget to go around. In comparison, those SVOD services can target far better with audience profile enrichment, having access to emails and other identifiers. Most FAST users don't have logins, and targeting is largely contextual. If you are competing for digital dollars, buyers are gonna want more targeting capabilities.