Assessing FAST Service Advertising
by Kristin Battestella
Naturally viewers must expect and accept a certain amount of commercials with Free Ad Supported Streaming Television. However each streamer's marketing varies from shrewd to double dipping and downright annoying. Here's a look at the three most common FAST services in our house – and why we are or aren't watching their livestreams as much based on their advertising models.
Roku – If there was one Roku ad loop per hour on their live channels, it would be tolerable. Unfortunately, almost all of the commercials on the Roku live channels are just a repeated loop of their own Roku advertising. Loud commercials for Martha Stewart, UFO Cowboys, Weird Al, and more Roku patting itself on the back play over and over, even cutting off mid loop when the program resumes. This has become so off putting that I hardly watch Roku live anymore. I'll even browse Roku, see something I like, then look for it elsewhere to avoid their redundant self-indulgence. There's no commercial countdown or sense of the outside world, and one wonders how Roku can do this rather than, you know, sell advertising space? The infomercial feeling is passed on to the viewer – I am already watching you, why are you promoting yourself to me? In a previous op-ed on how The Streaming Bubble Has Already Burst, I wrote about Roku's formerly blank countdown bumpers proving that there are so many streaming options that there isn't enough advertising to go around. Now Roku seems to have taken care of the problem by going all in on excessive self-promotion. When marathoning their new, exclusive This Old House episodes, I can't mute the commercials fast enough, for Roku never lets you forget you are watching Roku.
FreeVee – It's apparent now that Amazon got into the livestreaming business purely to market its own devices and shopping perks, and most of FreeVee's commercials are for products that can be bought on Amazon. A futuristic QR code often invites us to learn more and shop now while ads for Audible, Alexa, and other FreeVee or Prime programs pepper the commercial breaks in a clever double dipping. There's no commercial countdown and FreeVee has no option to browse their channel guide while you watch live – probably so viewers cum shoppers are unaware how much time has passed with no way to skip those subliminal points of sale for everything from pocket socks to some bowl with a basketball hoop invented by a kid. That's not to mention the terribly frustrating AI-timed ad breaks that cut into a program mid sentence. Talk about deflating a viewing experience! Amazon knows it has viewers over a barrel because customers like my family who use other Prime shopping or shipping benefits can't leave no matter how many so-called limited ads they insert into Prime. The audio/visual quality of Prime's new with Ads tier is also lower than the $3 extra for the now ad-free Prime, and there are even principled but probably unrealistic lawsuits being filed by customers fed up with the gouging. Recent rumors of a FreeVee shutdown are also mostly likely a soft gauge, for Amazon tiers rebranding into Prime Free, Prime Basic with ads, and Prime Premium will consolidate their product goals.
Pluto TV – Currently, Pluto seems to have the most tolerable commercials for our house. Although they too are getting repetitive with rampant sports betting ads every break, and that 1-800-Gambler fine print doesn't seem as important as Pluto's CBS Sports interconnections and overlords. Pluto used to have three or four commercials a countdown in the off hours on offbeat channels. However, now there are as many as nine ads a block in prime time on their featured livestream channels. The averaging six or seven ads are still only a few minutes, mixing half real product commercials and desperate promotions to sign up for Pluto's potentially up for auction parent streamer Paramount+. The sports and Paramount promos are no longer subtle, and if other mergers and big sales don't happen, I wonder if Paramount+ will also latch itself onto Pluto as a premium pay tier, seemingly supplying an unwanted expense onto the increasingly popular free demand. Such insular fun house mirrors seem so shortsighted and nonsensical, a distorted reflection of what viewers want but meant to keep consumers inside the app – ironically, the way casinos deliberately make their maze like floor pits difficult to escape so you keep playing. Streamers want you to be addicted to their platform and their platform only so you will never leave them.
Of course the biggest complaint about FAST services is that you can't complain because they are free. Unfortunately, there's a lingering sense that free and once commercial free turned ad-based platforms are biting the viewer hand that feeds them with this increasingly extreme internal marketing. Are audiences meant to believe that advertising agencies are too busy chasing dying network and cable dollars instead of buying space on popular free streamers? The lack of actual ad sales proves the current subscriber streaming models are unsustainable, and the overcrowded platforms are passing their lack of marketing onto customers with escalating fees and price gouging. Viewers now bear the brunt of a streamer's self-promotion ad nauseam, but savvy audiences will turn to alternative means or commercial circumvention or, fear of a streamer's fear, tune out rather than pay more.