Gracenote: FAST Channel Count Up 14 Percent in Q1

The number of FAST channels available globally rose by 14 percent in Q1 to almost 1,850, according to new data from Gracenote, delivering a total of 197,000 TV shows, movies and sports programs.

Per Gracenote’s analysis, FAST channels offer a greater percentage of more recent content than SVOD services. Almost half of the current FAST content slate was made in the last five years; on SVOD that share is 33 percent. On FAST, nearly 80 percent of the content was made in the last 15 years, versus 68.5 percent on SVOD.

FAST is also dominated by TV programming, at 93.1 percent, versus 88.8 percent on SVOD. In Q1, sports programming fell by 3.7 percent while docs accounted for the biggest category at 16.1 percent, followed by drama at 10.6 percent and news at 9.9 percent. Genre growth was led by news, up by 37 percent, while horror was up by 30 percent.

In SVOD, meanwhile, major platforms grew their overall content offerings by almost 10 percent in the last three months. Prime Video added the most titles (up by 12.6 percent), followed by Paramount+ (6.4 percent). The top five global SVODs were home to a total of 645,000 TV shows, movies and sports programs, with sports up 29.5 percent, movies up by almost 10 percent and TV shows by 9.2 percent.