Advanced Television

Zombies; channels, ads, viewers

June 11, 2026

In the latest issue of Euromedia we take the temperature of the FAST business. Guess what? It is running very hot. There are hundreds more channels streaming out thousands more hours and carrying tens of thousands of ads.

And viewers? Of course there are viewers, but enough to go around? The major platforms, Prime Video, Roku, Samsung etc, can deliver an audience but if a channel isn’t on all of them, they risk falling below the ‘zombie’ level, defined by Fastmaster as <6,000 viewers per hour. On the other hand, if a popular channel is on all apps it might get an audience to rival channel FAST was modelled on; niche cable networks, the likes of Boomerang, Vice, Starz etc.

The problem with the Zombies is that they can drag down the market as advertisers buy ‘run of network’ programmatically, get poor results and offer lower CPMs across the board. And all this is before anyone has certainty about who is streaming to empty rooms or to viewbots.

On top of this is the problem that the few viewers there are, are seeing the same inventory again and again… and again. This is true of the main channel’s streaming spin-offs too where inventory that has fallen short of deal guarantees goes to die.

Does it matter? Epsilon research says over half of viewers notice repetition all the time and 88 per cent notice it occasionally and 68 per cent say streaming channels are the worst offenders. Even worse, 76 per cent say it makes them think less of the brand and 70 per cent say it makes them think less of the platform.

Part of the solution has to be the age-old maxim; you get what you pay for. Advertisers and agencies should work harder to quality over quantity.

Categories: Blogs, Broadcast, Content, FTA, Nick Snow, Off Message

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