FAST viewership has plateaued at 45% of U.S. households, but that’s not a signal of decline. It’s a sign the model has matured into a permanent fixture of the streaming ecosystem.
OTT.X Summit Speakers Mull Increasingly Competitive and Complicated Streaming Landscape
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TVIQ Issues Framework to Give CTV Publishers More Control Over Ads
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Wolk at OTT.X Summit: Modern Media is Feudal Media
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Call for Thought Leadership Programming: OTT.X Breakfast @ CES 2026
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Streaming TV Nirvana Denied! (Or hindsight is 20/20?)
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Global Streaming Revenue Earned for Netflix by "The Witcher"
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FAST Didn’t Stall. It Graduated
FAST viewership has plateaued at 45% of U.S. households, but that’s not a signal of decline. It’s a sign the model has matured into a permanent fixture of the streaming ecosystem.
The Take
FAST was never meant to dethrone Netflix. It was meant to redefine what “television with ads” could look like. It did that and then passed the baton to the majors who could scale it sustainably.
Growth is exciting, but stability is power. FAST just became a pillar, not a headline.
Read the Full Analysis: The Streaming Wars
OTT.X Summit Speakers Mull Increasingly Competitive and Complicated Streaming Landscape
Panelists and speakers mulled the increasingly competitive and complicated landscape of the streaming marketplace at the OTT.X fall summit Oct. 22 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
With FAST channels proliferating, creators/influencers moving into the marketplace, and the big guys expanding their footprint in the advertising ecosystem, the competition for advertiser dollars is fierce, speakers said.
At the same time, Wall Street is taking a harder look at financials and raising the bar. “Wall street believes that you compete with YouTube and Amazon,” said keynote speaker Laura Martin, managing director of Needham & Company.
“There’s excess supply” of advertising space on connected TV, she noted, adding that “there’s a lot of FAST channels, probably need some consolidation.”
The financial markets are looking for diversified revenue streams, including subscriptions, advertising, e-commerce and possibly data sales. She joked, “Someone should buy Roku for its data and just shut down their streaming business,” in emphasizing Wall Street’s focus on monetization.
Netflix, she said, is moving too slow, pointing to its stock drop the day before after it released financials that missed guidance. One of the positive developments Netflix announced was the move into interactive shows, she said. Wall Street wants more interactivity, “more voting shows, more reality,” she emphasized.
She noted that creators/influencers are coming to the FAST marketplace, competing with the established channels and “blurring the edge” of amateur and professional content.
Advertising CPM (cost per thousand views) metrics are dropping, she said, as the ad inventory grows.
Many other panelists noted the glut of advertising inventory.
Read the Full Story: Media Play News
TVIQ Issues Framework to Give CTV Publishers More Control Over Ads
The connected TV business is like the weather. Everyone talks about it but no one can do anything to fix it.
With consumers still cutting the cord, streaming’s share of viewing continues to rise. And with the economy tightening up budgets, free ad supported streaming TV (FAST) channels are becoming an increasingly popular option.
And yet, while CTV boasts about offering targeting at scale within premium content, ad dollars aren’t flowing as fast as eyeballs. And of the ad dollars that are going to FAST channels, not enough of them are going to the programmers to sustain and grow the category, TVIQ CEO Scott Ryan tells The Measure.
“Individual channel operators are struggling in the connected TV world,” Ryan says. “They’re struggling because the power, the innovation and the aggregation that inevitably occurs in ad tech is happening on their backs.”
Ryan says FAST channels should be benefiting more from the growth of CTV and the ad dollars flowing into it. Instead, they’re encountering lower fill rates, lower CPMs and distributors are assuming more and more control.
The problem is that when channels make deals to get distribution on platforms like Roku, they give up a big chunk of their ad inventory and lose the ability to use a lot of the data about who is watching their programming.
Specifically, TVIQ says distribution platforms dictate their ownership rights over inventory, they routinely devalue publishers' bid requests and limit publishers in how they can represent and value their own supply.
Ryan says there’s nothing nefarious about those deals, which took form 10 years ago when the streaming business was in its infancy. The terms mirror the distribution deals made by cable channels that provided operators with a local ad inventory.
Now those deals need to be rebalanced, Ryan argues, but individual channels don’t have the clout to force the distributors to give the better terms at a time when the digital giants are flexing their ad-tech muscles.
Ryan’s solution is to try to build a coalition that would buy for what TVIQ is calling The Framework for Publisher Empowerment.
Read the Full Story: The Measure
Read the Framework for Publisher Empowerment: TVIQ
Wolk at OTT.X Summit: Modern Media is Feudal Media
Podcasts, TikTok channels, YouTube streamers, Substacks … they’re all forms of what Alan Wolk, co-founder and lead analyst of industry publication TVREV, likes to call “feudal media.”
Feudal media could be considered alternative forms of distribution of traditional media and entertainment outlets (broadcasters, theaters, radio), but looking at today’s entertainment landscape, those landing in the feudal media space are looking more mainstream than ever before.
“The monoculture has been replaced by feudal media,” and all defined by a series of self-contained content bubbles, Wolk said, speaking during the opening keynote at the recent OTT.X Summit.“People are retreating into these little bubbles. This is freaking advertisers out to no end. They don’t know how to reach people. In this new economy, attention is the coin of the realm. It’s not how much you watch something, it’s how [people are] interacting.
“How do you advertise to the masses when the mass is gone?”
Wolk harkened back to a simpler time for advertisers, where you reach most all viewers at once, because they were all watching the same programs at the same time. The options were limited a few TV channels, a few radio stations, a few print publications, with gatekeepers controlling all of it.
“Then the internet happened and very quickly the vandals have sacked Rome,” Wolk said. “The gatekeepers are gone.”
That’s left a mountain of unique channels attended to by the most passionate fan bases for each type of content, and they tend to be largely unaware of much of what is going on outside of their universe.
Read the Full Article: OTT.X
Call for Thought Leadership Programming: OTT.X Breakfast @ CES 2026
The annual OTT.X Breakfast at CES returns to Las Vegas in January 2026. Start your morning at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show alongside leaders from across CTV, OTT, streaming and the broader entertainment ecosystem for a can’t miss event featuring future-forward programming focused on the year ahead and a hearty breakfast.
Each year, this exclusive event brings together an influential community of industry executives, innovators, and dealmakers to network, exchange insights, and set the tone for the year ahead. OTT.X is now inviting sponsors to lead the conversation through curated programming segments that inform, inspire, and drive meaningful industry dialogue.
Space is limited and programming slots are expected to fill quickly. Submit your sponsor-led programming proposal today to secure your company’s place on stage at one of CES’s most anticipated streaming industry events.
2025 OTT.X Summit - Next Week - The Streaming, CTV and OOH Media Convergence
A group of streaming TV executives reveals what they know now that they wish they had known when they started. In the process, they show how far streaming TV drifted from its ideals.
At the OTT.X Summit in LA on October 22, Colin Dixon, Founder & Chief Analyst for nScreenMedia led a discussion titled “The FAST & the Formidable: Leading Content Providers on Growth & Strategy”.
The panel consisted of executives from across the streaming TV ecosystem, and they provided a broad view of where the industry is today and where it is headed.
The panel was asked to comment on two areas: something they know now that they wish they had known when they started in streaming, and the biggest opportunities in streaming TV.
Key Takeaways
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- Streaming TV is Complex: When streaming TV first came to the fore, leveraging the Internet for delivery seemed such a simple approach compared to traditional pay TV. And, if anything, it is getting more complex. For example, in the US market, new FAST platforms like TCL+ and TiVo+, as well as FAST offerings from Philo and DirecTV, have entered the market in just the last year.
- Nimbleness is a requirement to survive: The connected TV space has become extremely competitive over the last several years. What’s more, platforms that were once neutral are anything but today, often competing head-on with independent content providers like Radial Entertainment for the same viewer.
- Streaming TV ads must be measurably better than traditional TV ads: Many assumed that TV ad revenue would follow the audience as it migrated to streaming. However, it hasn’t quite turned that simple. The paucity of data provided by many streaming TV platforms is legendary among content providers. Many have complained to me that they cannot get enough information to program their channels and manage their business effectively.
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Read the Full Article: nScreenMedia
Streaming Success Rate by Country of Origin
Presented By:
Parrot Analytics' Streaming Economics shows how one of Netflix’s most valuable franchises, The Witcher, has generated nearly $1B in global streaming revenue and why its upcoming season could test both fan loyalty and financial momentum.
Key Findings
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- The Witcher returns October 30 with Liam Hemsworth replacing Henry Cavill - a high-stakes handoff for one of Netflix’s top-earning franchises, which has generated nearly $930 million globally since 2020.
- Pre-season 4 global demand is tracking below prior seasons. Ahead of this season release demand for the show has been less than 30x the average-series demand vs 35x for season 2 and 41.5× for season 3, with weaker trailer spikes signaling a softer lead-up.
- Cavill’s audience nearly mirrored the show’s (male-skewing, millennial) while Hemsworth’s fanbase trends younger and more female. Netflix must balance attracting new viewers without alienating loyal fans as it aims to push the franchise past the $1 billion mark.
In Case You Missed It
- The AI Apocalypse Is Coming and Netflix Is Selling Ads On It. The Streaming Wars
- Ask Skip: Should I Be Worried Netflix Is Replacing Me With AI?. The Streaming Wars
- Netflix Misses Earnings Target After $619 Million Brazil Tax Hit. The Streaming Wars
- Warner Bros. Discovery Confirms It’s Up for Sale, With All Options on the Table. The Streaming Wars
- Early DTC Momentum for ESPN and Fox One, But Retention Is the Real Challenge. The Streaming Wars
- Everyone Chased Subs. The Smart Money Chased Control. The Streaming Wars
- Apple’s Formula 1 Play Is a Bet on Ecosystem Control, Not Just Sports Rights. The Streaming Wars
- CNN Reboots Streaming Strategy with All Access Launch. The Streaming Wars
- FAST Becomes the Format Behind the Format. The Streaming Wars
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