YouTube’s New FAST Is Old News, Peak TV Has Peaked

1. YouTube’s New FAST Is Old News

There’s been much ooh-ing and ahh-ing this week about YouTube’s plans to buy some more programs from a range of providers (Cinedigm, FilmRise and A+E are among the names mentioned) and launch some linear channels on their existing FAST service.

Wait? YouTube already has a FAST service?

Yes. They launched it in March 2022 amid much fanfare. The new service started off with over 4K TV episodes from 100 different series, all available for free with ads. With plans, Variety claimed last year, to “add up to 100 new titles each week.” This is in addition to the 1500 ad-supported movie titles they already had on offer.

So nothing to really get worked up about, because if past behavior is any indication, they will continue to do as little as possible to promote their FAST service and they will do nothing to make it easy to find the service on their browser-based and mobile apps.

There’s a reason for that though. (At least in their minds.)

Why It Matters

The reason is (and I am not guessing here, I have heard this from people who work there) is that there is a real fear that launching a successful FAST service will cut into their Creator business and will likely anger said Creators at a time when TikTok is becoming more and more of a factor.

Hence the fact that there is no “TV and Movies” tab on the mobile or desktop apps. And that when you launch those apps—or the CTV app for that matter—nothing pops up to say “Hey kids! We launched a FAST service with all these great TV shows you can watch! Come check it out—it’s FREE!”

Which would be a perfectly logical thing to do, especially since (and I know I am not the only one) Every. Single. Fucking. Time. I open YouTube on my browser, there’s a pop-up asking me to subscribe to YouTube premium or YouTube TV.

So there’s clearly not much interest in having a whole lot of people know about it. 

Which then raises the more existential question of why they are bothering to do this.

I have no real answer for that other than that they think they should.

It’s actually predictable behavior for Google, though and has been for the past decade.

Turn your minds back to 2014, when the James Franco/Seth Rogan movie The Interview was the target of North Korean ire. Movie theaters didn’t want to run it, so it debuted on YouTube where you could rent or buy the movie.

At which point millions of people said “Wait! What? I can rent movies and TV shows on YouTube? Since when?”

And you know what boys and girls? You can still rent movies and TV shows on YouTube. (YouTube the app, not just YouTube TV.)

Not that they ever promote that capability. 

And yet they spend money to strike the deals that allow them to rent those movies, and to set up an interface and payment system that allows you to rent or buy those movies.

So yeah, I have no idea what they are thinking other than that they have too much money and internal forces push back about the TV stuff messing with the Creator stuff and maybe they’re thinking they can test it now and then roll it out in Europe as part of their plan to control the TV OS market. Or maybe it’s just something they did to make investors and/or a key executive happy or maybe they see it as a hedge against Meta doing something similar.

And if you’ve ever worked with a really big dysfunctional company you will know that all of those things can be true simultaneously and remain true for the better part of a decade without any actual resolution.

Point being, don’t get all excited about YouTube’s still unnamed FAST.

Those articles you saw this week are likely to be the last you hear about it until they add yet another new feature.

What You Need To Do About It

If you are in the industry, remember that FAST services contain a mix of linear channels and on-demand programming and that linear streaming channels are not limited to FASTs, that several of the SVOD services already have them and everyone else is likely to jump on board this year. A number of us—Evan Shapiro in particular has been doing a yeoman’s job here—have been valiantly attempting to beat this into everyone’s consciousness for some time now and we’ve largely succeeded, but for those recidivists out there... 

Linear channels are a great way to surface library content, increase time spent on platform and reduce choice overload. Meaning there’s really no reason you would not go down that road as a way of increasing both ad revenue and customer satisfaction.

If you’re Google, yes, it would be good to give your new service a name and actually, you know, promote it. But that’s not going to happen, so you just go on being you.

If you’re everyone else in the industry, nothing much to see here. 

2. Peak TV Has Peaked

Although John Landgraf’s PeakTV-O-Meter is showing 599 new original series for 2022 (up from 560 in 2021), he’s predicting that 2023 will be the year that number starts to fall. 

New evidence from Ampere Analysis would seem to back him up, showing a 24% drop in the number of “adult scripted series ordered by TV networks and streaming companies aimed for U.S. audiences” in the second half of 2022.

So would common sense, as without all that money from carriage and retrans fees, the Hollywood money tree is not bearing fruit the way it used to.

Then there are the laws of physics that say that there’s only so much time in each 24 hour period to watch TV and so most of those 599 shows are going to go largely unwatched.

Why It Matters

The amount of time people devote to watching TV has been greatly reduced by the advent of the internet and so the aforementioned laws of physics are really kicking in as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and video games (amongst other things) take up increasingly larger pieces of everyone’s leisure time.

There’s also the fact that most creative endeavors are not very good, whether it’s a song, a poem, a sculpture or a TV show. The numbers did not look quite as awful back in the days when networks would roll out around 15 new series each year and 10 of them got canceled in their first season, but the carcasses start to pile up when streaming services release 50 or 60 and 40 of them die off.

You see, what had happened was that Netflix got lucky and their first couple of shows, series like House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, and Narcos were all hits and everyone seemed to think that was the percentage they should be shooting for.

Only it doesn’t work like that and all the overproduction has created an oft-remarked upon perception that much of what is on SVOD is not very good, at least not the original series.

Which leads us to the FASTs and the popularity of reruns at a time when viewers are being inundated by new series.

This is just basic human psychology: if your choice is investing your limited free time in yet another new show you know very little about versus one you’ve seen countless times, and you’ve already got several new series in the works, the rerun is going to win out. 

Which brings up another issue: The challenges of marketing TV shows in the Time of Streaming is another reason we’re due to see an end to “Peak TV.”

Back in the day when OGTV was the only game in town (HT to Shapiro for that phrase), networks had highly paid teams whose job it was to figure out how to get people to watch their new series.

Placement was a huge part of that—determining which new show would you sandwich between two of your hit shows in order to keep viewers from changing the channel was truly an art. 

Getting the word out was easier too, as networks could run promos for their new shows all throughout their prime time schedules and their nightly news shows and whatever sporting events they had on tap.

There were even tricks, like back in the 90s when NBC would start an episode of their 8:30 show immediately after the credits to the 8:00 show started rolling (no commercial break) as a way to keep viewers glued to the set.

And while streaming services certainly do have many ways to drive tune-in and far better data with which to do so, it’s important to remember that the ask is much bigger. 

In OGTV it was just “don’t change the channel.” In streaming, it’s “go find our app and then locate the show, which is hidden somewhere on the interface and then find Season 1 and hit ‘play’ and hope there’s not a glitch.”

Big. big difference.

There’s also the money thing. 

It might have seemed like a clever idea at one point to keep cranking out original series as a way to generate buzz and get audiences to subscribe.

But there are just too many streaming services now and it’s unclear how many subscribers buzzy shows like Succession and White Lotus manage to draw in given their paltry ratings compared to 2023 prime time hits like Fire Country. (And those are the buzzy ones. The ones that don’t get any buzz sink like lead balloons along with all the money that was invested in them.)

Finally, there’s advertising. 

When you’re making shows for subscribers, you have a lot of freedom as to where you can go creatively. When you need to convince brands to run ads against those shows, there’s a whole new set of criteria you have to be aware of. 

Yet another reason to be thoughtful.

What You Need To Do About It

If you are one of the SVOD services, withdrawal is tough. But as noted in #8 of our 2023 predictions, this is the year that quality will trump quantity, so focus on that and on promoting those series you feel good about.

They don’t all have to be Serious Dramas That Make Statements About The Human Condition either. Another Ted Lasso or two would be fine.   

Remember too that without all those billions from carriage and retrans, the “lottery winner” era of free spending will come to a close. The American television industry will need to be like its brethren in every other country and spend money on production with a greater degree of prudence.

Not the end of the world and probably a move that is likely to give more power to those who truly believe in their craft. 

Versus those who believe in their bank balance.