As Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) increasingly captures viewers’ attention, the tremendous potential for monetization opportunities rises along with it. Amagi, a global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV, today announced the fourth edition of its Global FAST Quarterly report, revealing that FAST ad engagement has seen significant growth in 2022, with native ad formats like Dynamic Brand Insertion (DBI) promising new avenues for monetization. This edition of Amagi’s FAST industry reports aggregates data from its proprietary platform, Amagi ANALYTICS, on viewership and content monetization trends. It covers insights on top ad-supported platforms across the U.S. & Canada, EMEA, APAC and Latin America for 2022.
The report analyzed year-over-year growth of total hours of viewing (HOV) and ad impressions between January – March 2021 and January – March 2022, across 2000+ channels on 50+ FAST platforms on Amagi’s dynamic server-side ad insertion platform. The report revealed a 109% increase in ad impressions, an 84% rise in HOV, and 110% growth in ad opportunities on the Amagi platform. In addition, the report found that 97.78% of users will watch an entire ad, from start to finish.
One of the biggest value propositions of FAST platforms is a lower ad load compared to traditional cable channels. However, this also presents a dilemma for content owners and streamers — how can they manage the ad supply without compromising the viewing experience and overloading the audience with too many ads? To strike a balance between the promise of low ad load and the goal of increased ad revenue, many content creators and platforms are turning to new ad formats, like DBI, that fit intuitively and seamlessly into the audience’s viewing experience—boosting views as well as ad revenue.
“By fitting ads naturally into the streaming content, Dynamic Brand Insertion helps break the blind spot consumers have developed for traditional ads,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder, Amagi. “We believe this is the future of ad-supported television — and our latest FAST report confirms it.”
Over the last year, as the number of channels increased, viewership increased as well, this meant advertisers had more ad inventory to bet on, making it easier for content owners to monetize their content. Since Q1 2021, ad opportunities have increased by 110%, indicating that more viewers are watching the content and ads, and ad slots are being used more effectively. What’s more, total ads received increased by 82% year-over-year.