Problems in the FAST Lane

While free, ad-supported TV platforms are definitely having a moment, in both viewership and ad growth, they’re also struggling to transcend their downmarket reputation as a halfway house for second-tier (and worse) content.

FASTs are entirely reliant on content partners to bulk up their offerings beyond what little original programming they create. Tubi, for example, may have found success with some originals, including ’Sidelined: The QB and Me,’ (pictured) the teen movie starring TikToker Noah Beck, but shows like Shonda Rhimes’s ’Scandal,’ which went off the air in 2018, are still responsible for the bulk of its viewing. Photo: Courtesy of Tubi

Julia Alexander

February 25, 2026

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Until recently, many in the entertainment industry treated free, ad-supported streaming TV—a.k.a. FAST platforms—as something between a joke and a curiosity. While the big premium streamers competed for prestige, the likes of Pluto TV, Tubi, and The Roku Channel were often viewed as halfway houses for content whose highest aim was just to exist: syndicated procedurals, B-tier horror movies, vast reserves of Blue Bloods and Star Trek: The Next Generation, a branded channel called “Game & Fish TV.” In the spendthrift era of the streaming wars, FASTs were an unfashionable afterthought.