Amagi, the global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV, today released its latest report on the state of the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) space which confirms that year-on-year growth in FAST continues to outpace industry predictions. The sixth edition of its Quarterly Global FAST Report reveals that growth in Q3 (Jul-Sep) 2022 compared to Q3 (Jul-Sep) 2021 in Europe saw an increase of 99.97% in ad impressions and over 51% in Hours of Viewing.

This edition of the report 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. These 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.

The availability of Connected TV (CTV) is a key marker of FAST channels adoption in a market and Amagi’s research shows that Western Europe with 70% CTV coverage is gaining ground on the US whose coverage is about 80%. In Central and Eastern Europe, this figure stands below 50% though this is still fueling a huge FAST viewership spike of over 1,500% across these regions in Q3 2022 when compared to Q3 2021.

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UK leads in CTV adoption

The UK is the most advanced country when it comes to CTV adoption with rates as high as ~85%, making it possible to reach almost 94% of internet users via connected devices. Amagi ANALYTICS data showed between Q3 2022 and Q3 2021, the total Hours of Viewing grew by 37.44%, while ad impressions saw an impressive 60.80% rise.

Combining findings from Amagi ANALYTICS with UK-specific insights from its Consumer Survey, the Amagi team attributes the growth to three major factors: the higher cost of living driving audiences to cheaper or free sources of high-quality content which FAST readily offers; the ever-improving quality of content available on FAST platforms; and the entry of more prominent content brands into the FAST landscape.

Growth continues in Europe

Amagi’s research also confirmed that it is not just in the UK where such positive growth is happening. Looking at the increase in total Hours of Viewing for the Top 7 European countries, France with 120.77% and Italy with 111.54% both showed triple digit growth in Q3 2022 over the same period in 2021. Analyzing ad impressions, for the same period Italy tops the list with 501.98% year-on-year growth, France is second at 312.66%, Spain is at 260.06%, Austria at 124.23%, and the Netherlands at 106.23% making up the Top 5.

“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 & 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.”

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