Why an $11.68 billion industry is bleeding cash—and what it takes to fix it
The Fastest-Growing Money Pit in Media
FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) is the hottest trend in media. The numbers are staggering: $11.68 billion global market in 2025, 42% growth in channel count since 2023, 100 million monthly users on Tubi alone.
Yet here’s the uncomfortable truth that industry insiders won’t say publicly: Most FAST channels are losing money on every viewer.
The FAST Economic Paradox
Revenue Side: Ad-Supported
FAST channels generate revenue through advertising. With average CPMs of $15-25 and 8-12 minutes of ads per hour, revenue per viewer-hour is just $0.02-0.05.
Cost Side: The Hidden Killer
Here’s what FAST platforms don’t advertise: total delivery cost per viewer-hour is $0.03-0.06. That includes CDN delivery, encoding, origin/storage, and platform fees.
Wait. Read that again.
Revenue per viewer-hour: $0.02-0.05
Cost per viewer-hour: $0.03-0.06
That’s negative unit economics.
The Unicast Death Spiral
Traditional streaming uses unicast delivery—one stream per viewer. The more successful your channel becomes, the faster you bleed money:
- 10,000 viewers = $300-600/hour delivery cost
- 100,000 viewers = $3,000-6,000/hour delivery cost
- 1,000,000 viewers = $30,000-60,000/hour delivery cost
The Real Numbers: A 1M Viewer-Hour Analysis
A moderately successful FAST channel with 1 million viewer-hours per month:
Unicast Delivery
Revenue: $35,000 (ad revenue)
Costs: $167,000 (CDN + encoding + operations)
Margin: -$132,000/month (LOSS)
With Multicast (SmartCast)
Revenue: $35,000
Costs: $12,000 (fixed delivery)
Margin: +$23,000/month (PROFIT)
The same channel goes from -$132,000 loss to +$23,000 profit.
The Multicast Solution
What if delivery costs were fixed instead of per-viewer?
| Viewers | Unicast Cost/Hour | Multicast Cost/Hour |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $300-600 | $50-100 |
| 100,000 | $3,000-6,000 | $50-100 |
| 1,000,000 | $30,000-60,000 | $50-100 |
| 10,000,000 | $300,000-600,000 | $50-100 |
With multicast, costs are constant regardless of viewership.
The Path to Profitable FAST
The FAST channels that will survive the shakeout share common traits:
- Low delivery costs (own infrastructure or efficient partnerships)
- Premium content (sports, exclusive programming)
- Strong ad sales (direct relationships, not just programmatic)
- Operational efficiency (lean teams, automated workflows)
Notably absent: any channel relying purely on unicast CDN delivery at standard rates.
The Bottom Line
FAST channels are losing money because they’re using 1990s delivery technology for a 2025 business model. Unicast was fine when streaming meant hundreds of viewers. It breaks at millions.
The $11.68 billion FAST market isn’t going away—demand is real and growing. But the current delivery economics are unsustainable. Something has to give.
The channels that figure this out first will dominate. The rest will become cautionary tales in media industry case studies.