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How to choose a FAST channel provider. Seven questions, in the order they decide the deal.

Every company in this market will build, run or distribute your channel, and most of them describe the offer in the same words. The differences are in who serves the stream, what you pay and for how long, and what you can take with you when you leave. These are the questions that surface them, and they apply to us as much as to anyone.

The questions

Ask these before the price

The first one decides what the others mean. A provider who serves your manifest is selling you machinery; one who serves it for you is selling you a partnership, and the same words in the contract cost different amounts under each.

  1. Who serves the manifest?

    The company whose server hands the playlist to the player is the company that inserts the ads and counts the impressions. If that is you, the revenue report is yours to produce and theirs to check. If it is them, the report is theirs to produce and yours to trust. Everything else in the contract sits on top of this answer, so ask it first.

  2. What do I pay, and when does it stop?

    Three shapes exist. A flat fee per channel per month, which you can write down before signing. A metered rate per streaming hour or per gigabyte delivered, which you multiply by the roughly 730 hours a linear channel runs each month before you can compare it to anything. And a revenue share, which costs nothing upfront and a percentage of every ad dollar for as long as the deal runs. Ask for the twelve-month number under each shape at the audience you expect.

  3. Is there a content minimum, and who sets the schedule?

    Some providers require a set number of hours a year and a refresh rate before they will take a channel; some let you start with a weekend of programming and grow. Separately, ask who builds the grid. If their team programs the channel, a schedule change goes through their queue; if you do, it is your afternoon.

  4. What leaves with me?

    Your master files, the schedule, the programme guide feed, the ad cue configuration, the analytics history, and the stream URL that platforms and players already point at. Ask which of these you can export on the day you give notice, and how long that notice is. The answer tells you whether you are renting a channel or building one.

  5. Which SCTE-35 do they emit?

    Most providers say yes to SCTE-35. Ask which command forms, splice_insert and time_signal, which cue types, and whether a cue profile can differ per distribution partner, because platforms ask for these by name in their carriage specs. A channel that can only signal one shape of break has one fewer platform it can be carried on.

  6. What guide formats, and how far ahead?

    Every platform reads the programme guide in its own schema. XMLTV and JSON cover most of them; a branded web guide covers your own viewers. Ask how many days ahead the feed publishes and whether it regenerates when the grid changes, or whether someone re-exports it by hand.

  7. Who is on the other end at 3am?

    A linear channel fails at night, on a holiday, during the one live event that mattered. Ask what is watched automatically (encoder restarts, output disconnects, frozen picture, a live feed dropping), what the channel does on its own when that happens, and how you find out. A standby screen and an alert beat a phone call in the morning.

What it costs

Three shapes of price.

Every FAST provider prices in one of these, and a quote only makes sense once you know which. Two of them can be compared on a sheet; the third has to be compared on trust.

Flat

A number you can write down

Per channel, per month, delivery included or not. Check the viewer or bandwidth ceiling and what happens past it. This is the shape that lets a channel budget a year in advance.

Metered

A rate with a clock behind it

Per streaming hour, per gigabyte, per viewer-minute. Fine for an event; for a channel that is on 730 hours a month, multiply first and compare second.

Share

Nothing now, a percentage always

No upfront fee, a cut of ad revenue for the life of the deal, computed by the party that serves the stream. Suits a rights holder with a deep catalogue and no wish to operate anything. Ask what the audit right looks like.

Underneath all seven

Whoever serves the manifest owns the count

A FAST channel earns from impressions, and an impression is counted by the server that stitched the ad into the stream. That server belongs to whoever hands the playlist to the player. If your channel runs on your own playout and your own delivery, the count is yours, and a distributor who carries the channel gets a share from a report you produce. If a provider takes your files or your feed and serves the channel from its own systems, the count is theirs, and you are paid from a report only they can produce. There is no arrangement in which both sides measure independently, which is why this is a contract term and not a technical detail.

Neither answer is wrong. A rights holder with two thousand hours of drama and no interest in running anything is well served by handing the stream over and taking a share. A community broadcaster, a sports club or a creator with an audience of their own usually wants the channel to stay theirs: the stream URL, the guide, the cues, the analytics, and the whole of the ad revenue. Which one you are decides which providers to talk to, and the seven questions above are how you find out which kind each one is. If the open question is whether you want to operate the channel at all, managed playout vs self-serve is the page for that.

Our own answers, for the record: you serve the manifest, on your own account, from $254 per channel per month with delivery included; there is no content minimum; the files, the grid, the guide feed and the cue configuration are yours to export; both SCTE-35 command forms are emitted with a cue profile per partner; the guide publishes as XMLTV, JSON and a web page up to 14 days ahead; and the channel watches itself for encoder restarts, dropped feeds and frozen picture, falls back to a standby screen, and tells you. The distribution dashboard then treats aggregators and platforms as what they are: carriage partners you can add or drop.

Start with the library you have

If the content already exists as a catalogue, the channel is a schedule away. The library page covers how many hours are enough, what rotation looks like, and where the channel goes once it is on.

VOD library to FAST channel
Questions

FAST providers, answered.

What is a FAST channel provider?

A company that supplies some or all of what a FAST channel needs to exist: the playout that runs the schedule, the encoding and delivery, the ad insertion, and sometimes the introductions to the platforms that carry channels. The word covers three quite different businesses, which is why the questions on this page matter more than the label.

What is the difference between a FAST platform and a FAST provider?

A platform is where viewers watch: Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV and their peers. A provider is who runs the channel that appears there. Platforms rarely charge for carriage; they take a share of ad revenue or fill the breaks themselves. Providers charge in one of three shapes, set out below.

What is the difference between a FAST aggregator and a playout provider?

A playout provider gives you the machinery and you run the channel: your schedule, your stream, your ad breaks, your count. An aggregator takes your library or your feed, runs the channel on its own playout, places it with the platforms it already has deals with, and pays you a share of what the ads earn. The first is a subscription; the second is a partnership in which the aggregator holds the stream and produces the report your share is paid from.

How much does a FAST channel provider cost?

It depends on the shape. Flat per channel per month is a known number: ours is $254 per channel billed yearly or $299 month to month, with playout, graphics, the guide and delivery included. Metered pricing publishes a rate per streaming hour or per gigabyte, which for a channel that runs 730 hours a month is the number to multiply out before comparing. Revenue share publishes nothing upfront and takes a percentage of ad revenue for the life of the deal.

Do I need a provider at all?

For playout, yes, in practice: something has to run a schedule around the clock, hold the encode stable and mark the breaks, and doing that on your own hardware is a full-time engineering job. For distribution, no. A channel can run on your own player and site, go into the platform application queues yourself, or do both from one playout.

Can I switch FAST providers later?

Only as easily as your files, your schedule and your stream address let you. Ask before signing what you can export, whether the channel keeps its stream URL and guide feed, and how much notice the contract wants. A channel whose masters, grid and cues live only inside somebody else’s system takes months to move; one where they are yours takes an afternoon.

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