Future of TV Briefing: Why original programming has yet to become a priority among FAST channel operators

By Tim Peterson

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at why TV networks are content with not yet making meaningful pushes into original programming for their channels on free, ad-supported streaming TV services.

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FAST and slow

The key hits:

Channels on free, ad-supported streaming TV services continue to be largely full of programming recycled from elsewhere, like traditional TV.
TV networks have mostly refrained from investing in original programming for their FAST channels because their library programming is considered new for many FAST viewers.
But the promotional upside could pull more FAST channel operators to invest in original programming.

Free, ad-supported streaming TV services bear many resemblances with traditional pay-TV. Two, in particular, stand out. The FAST services carry 24/7 streaming channels that echo linear TV networks, and those channels air a lot of re-runs.

While FAST services like Amazon’s IMDb TV and Roku’s The Roku Channel continue to load up on original shows, the original programming push is slower going for media companies operating 24/7 streaming channels on these FAST services. The pace is beginning to pick up, though. However, for FAST channel operators to really invest in original programming — particularly those that also own traditional TV networks — they will need to see that the revenue upside will offset the content costs and exceed the effectively free money they’re already making on the FAST services.

“I’ve got shows on my network or movies that we’ve created that are years old. We might have produced them anywhere from three to eight years ago, and they don’t get a lot of presence on our linear network currently because we’re trying to be fresh and satisfy our advertisers,” said one TV network executive.

That programming may not suffice on the linear network, but it’s more than fine on FAST services. “We’re getting tons of views, and it’s not even new content. So we’re making money off old stuff. And big money,” said the executive, who declined to share specific revenue figures.

That ability to make money off old stuff lessens any urgency for FAST channel operators to invest in original programming. More to the point, for many FAST viewers, that “old stuff” may be brand new.

For example, millions of people may tune in to watch a show on one of A+E Networks’ traditional TV channels, “but there are 115, 118 million other households that haven’t seen the show,” said A+E Networks evp of global content sales and business development Mark Garner in the March 8 episode of the Digiday Podcast. That sizable remaining audience makes FASTs “an opportunity to bring new quote-unquote content to those viewers because they haven’t seen it yet. So the demand for us to have to do originals is not as urgent as it might appear on the surface.”

That urgency may have yet to arisen, but an opportunity is presenting itself for FAST channel operators to use original programming as a …read more

Source:: Digiday