FAST and VOD – a journey

FAST and VOD – a journey

FAST channel business for most TV device platforms is completely divorced from 3rd?party apps, with FAST Channels seen as a tool to displace the old distribution (broadcasters) with the new; Amazon, Samsung, Roku, Android TV etc., and with some of the old players fighting back (hedging their bets) with their own offering (e.g. Xumo – Charter/Comcast).?

In this world controlling the FAST Channel line-up is key to success – the route to winning the audience - and 3rd?party apps are an immaterial side show for immaterial content, a distraction and worst of all one that can disrupt and interrupt continued viewing of the FAST Linear line-up that is (currently) all that matters.

But that can’t be it, there has to be some sort of extension to the FAST offering. This is because a single linear channel is so limited in a connected streaming environment, limited in the amount of content on offer, boxset binging etc, limited viewing time, and limiting innovation and commercial up-sale opportunities. And, if looked at rationally, it therefore limits ad inventory growth by not creating a logical extension to a complimentary ‘FAST store’.

The logical conclusion here is that FAST Channels could and perhaps should act as a front door to FAST Stores, delivering huge untapped audience usage. FAST Channels may remain the main event for many consumers but surely the front door to complimentary live and on-demand content for millions of others.

The difficulty with this potentially desirable extension to consumer engagement and the flow of viewing from a FAST Channel to a FAST Store, is that the customer journey crosses two currently separate business processes from a content owners’ perspective; FAST Channels are a syndicated route to market, FAST Stores (VOD apps) are an owned and operated (O&O) direct route to market. And that can make the workflow a challenge.

Unifying the workflow

There are two areas to address.

The first is within the content owner’s domain, to create a single source point for distributing content to both the FAST Channel operators and into a content owner’s own apps (FAST Store).

The second is in the CTV devices, to create a mechanism to link the FAST Channel to a FAST Store.

Content owner unification

Besides the benefits touched on – giving the consumer a better viewing experience and the content and device owners more ad income – creating a unified workflow for putting linear content into FAST Channels and, linear, live and VOD content into FAST Stores, from a single catalogue, will save, not just operational and editorial costs for content owners, but also ingest and egress distribution costs.

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Device owner unification

Unifying the customer journey, for a flow of consumer engagement from FAST Channel to FAST Store, also requires the cooperation of the device owners. Here the situation is not so clear with one device owner saying that currently this would contravene policy (to link a FAST Channel with the launch of an app).?

One assumes this restriction is to tie the consumer into the FAST channel, but ultimately it’s a daft protectionist policy doomed to long-term failure. Not least because it is the device owners themselves who probably most stand to benefit from extended customer engagements, at least as much as consumers and content owners, as they take revenue share from both FAST channels and apps.

There is a question of whether the functionality exists to launch an app (a FAST Store) from a FAST Channel, but as we already use things like partner rows to deep-link to shows in our apps, I don’t think it can be much of a leap to use a variation of these APIs in a bumper/ad slot trigger mechanism. It certainly doesn’t make much sense to completely block off any option to such functionality elsewhere on the device. Not least because the direction of travel also advocates trigger mechanisms for interactive advertising.

Assuming enough consumers are interested in opening the pandora of FAST Store content, for ‘more’ and ‘specials’ and ‘exclusives’ etc., then, whether device owners want the best FAST Channel line up to sell more CTVs/Streaming boxes, or to get more advertising income, linking FAST Channels with Stores provides them with a win either way.

The key for content owners is to be able to create these Stores super cheap and quickly, and as an associated part of FAST Channel editorial production, and it’s our goal to make that happen.

A final thought

FAST Stores don’t have to be ad-funded only. By calling it a FAST Store I’m eluding to the fact that I initially see it as an AVOD extension to the FAST ‘Free’ channel, i.e. just more content and more advertising. However, because we ‘can’ innovate more in the Store, we can offer ad-free subscriptions, exclusive subscriptions, upsold bundles or boxsets, PPV ticketing to live events etc., either way, it’s a cut of revenue share that never existed before and logical growth for the industry.

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