The latest Quarterly Global FAST Report from Amagi reveals that viewing of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) is continuing to grow across Europe, with over 50 per cent more hours viewed during Q3 2022 compared to the same quarter the previous year.
According to the report, the availability of Connected TV (CTV) is helping to drive the popularity of FAST channels, with Amagi’s research finding that in Western Europe CTV now has 70 per cent coverage.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the figure stands below 50 per cent despite a FAST viewership spike of over 1,500 per cent across the regions in Q3 2022 when compared to Q3 2021, said the report.
The UK is the most advanced country when it comes to CTV adoption with rates as high as ~85 per cent, the report states, making it possible to reach almost 94 per cent of internet users via connected devices. In the UK alone, the amount of hours viewers spent watching FAST channels rose by 37.44 per cent between Q3 2022 and Q3 2021, while ad impressions grew by 60.80 per cent.
The cost of living, the quality of content and the entry of more prominent content brands into the FAST landscape are helping to drive these increases, said Amagi.
In France, hours viewed grew by 120.77 per cent, while Italy saw a 111.54 per cent growth year on year.
“Recent global events have contributed to a difficult economic climate in Europe and across the world. Against this backdrop, the FAST sector has displayed the type of strong performance our Global FAST Report Edition 5 had predicted,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder and chief revenue officer, Amagi. “We see FAST continuing to accelerate in a challenging macro environment, and we anticipate the trend to continue, making it an attractive time for content owners to get into this market.”
The full report can be downloaded here.
Amagi’s research aggregates data from the company’s proprietary viewership and ad analytics platform, Amagi ANALYTICS, which brings together data and insights from 50+ platforms and over 2,000 channels that run on Amagi’s SSAI platform, Amagi THUNDERSTORM. The findings are further supplemented by data gathered from the Amagi Consumer Survey October 2022 – an online survey of ~600 UK households who watched TV at least once in the previous week.
