FAST

FAST keeps compounding: free streaming heads toward 131 million US viewers

By The Wire Desk · 2026-09-12

Free ad-supported streaming television — FAST, the linear-style channels bundled into Roku, Tubi, Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus and their peers — keeps putting up the kind of growth numbers the rest of the TV business would trade for. Research from MNTN, drawing on eMarketer forecasts, puts FAST at 131.4 million US viewers in 2026, about 38.7% of the population and up 5.8% from 2025.

The engagement picture is arguably more interesting than the reach picture. Per eMarketer's 2026 FAST outlook, daily time spent with FAST platforms is projected to climb nearly 10% this year. Roku and Horizon Media's joint study reports monthly active FAST households up 12% year over year, average daily viewing hours per household up 16%, and channel session lengths up 25% — viewers aren't just sampling free TV, they're settling in.

Two content trends stand out in the Roku/Horizon data: total hours watched across major FAST services grew 43% year over year, and sports channels more than doubled, up 105%, as events and league-branded channels migrate to free tiers. The Roku Channel remains the category's biggest storefront at roughly 97 million US viewers.

Revenue is growing more slowly than eyeballs — a gap Amagi's analysis of Nielsen data calls the category's defining tension going into 2027. Mordor Intelligence sizes the global FAST market at $14.3 billion in 2026, up from $12.3 billion in 2025. That leaves FAST monetization per hour well behind cable's — and explains why ad-stack plumbing (better ad decisioning, server-side insertion, cleaner measurement) is where much of the category's investment is going.

The bottom line: FAST's audience story is settled. Its money story is the one to watch.