Report: FAST Expands Beyond Back Catalog

FAST is no longer dominated by archive content, according to a new study from Gracenote, with more than 70 percent of available programming having been produced since 2010.

The 2025 Gracenote FAST report found that there are more than 1,610 active FAST channels on offer in key markets, including the U.S., U.K., Germany and Canada, a 42 percent gain since the middle of 2023. Nearly 75 percent are in the U.S.

Collectively, FAST channels are offering more than 178,000 unique programs, episodes and movies, highlighting the crucial need to improve the discoverability experience.

Nielsen’s Gracenote also found that sports, reality and news/commentary programming make up the top three genres in FAST. Reality is the fastest-growing category, rising to 138 channels from 19 in July of last year. The number of sports channels, meanwhile, more than doubled to 220. The most common genre is entertainment, accounting for 303 channels.

Gracenote also found increasing engagement for FAST services, notably Tubi and The Roku Channel. Per Amagi, FAST viewing rose by 95 percent from Q4 2023 to Q4 2024.

”FAST is in many ways a unique service, but its lifeblood is still content,” said Tim Cutting, chief revenue officer at Gracenote. “So, program-level metadata providing understanding of FAST content is more important than ever to audience engagement and advertising initiatives.”