The news: Ad-supported and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) are surging in popularity—what started as low-cost, complementary streaming options are becoming primary destinations for discovery.
- Total US hours spent watching FAST services reached 1.8 billion in August, per Comscore’s 2025 State of Streaming report, up 43% YoY.
- 45% of Netflix viewing happens on its ad tier, up 32.4% YoY.
- Similar gains appeared across Prime Video, HBO Max, Discovery+ (all up 10 points), and Disney+ (up 16 points).
Zooming out: Viewers are redefining the value of free and low-cost entertainment as platforms like Samsung TV Plus and Google TV now attract daily engagement from roughly one-third of their users, marking their staying power and mainstream appeal.
With seamless integration into smart TV home screens, many users don’t even realize they’re watching FAST content—it just feels like television again, per Comscore.
The rise of ad-supported streaming reflects a new environment where loyalty is driven by choice and curation, not cost, giving advertisers a scalable channel to reach audiences.
As users embrace FAST and ad-supported streaming video on demand (SVOD), the competition will shift from acquisition to retention.
The caveat: While FAST is becoming an important part of the connected TV (CTV) landscape, advertiser adoption is lagging.
- Ad fill rates continue to fall as content supply exceeds advertiser demand, per Wurl.
- Only 11% of CTV advertisers prioritize contextual targeting at a channel level, like program or service, per Gracenote.
Improving advertisers’ ability to selectively place content could change that trend, encouraging marketers to overlook some of FAST’s current drawbacks, including subscriber churn and a lack of exclusive and live content.
What advertisers should do: View FAST and other ad-supported streaming options as a crucial part of the CTV media mix, tapping into rising demand for budget viewing choices and the services’ wealth of user engagement data for campaign optimization. At the same time, maintain investment in paid CTV environments to ensure access to exclusive, premium content and high-value audiences.