Has the Pandemic Accelerated AVOD's Growth?
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Read the complete transcript of this clip:
Chris Pfaff: It's an interesting thing, because I think you probably have quite a bit of data on where FAST is going, particularly in the U.S. Do you think that this pandemic period--is it just a perfect storm or do we think that people are really looking to address audiences without charging them and possibly adding to their budget more or decreasing their budget?
Srinvasan KA: Totally, Chris. Certainly, the pandemic has accelerated the entire AVOD/FAST trend. I was reading a recent Omdia report that talks about 200 million viewers today in the U.S. domestic for AVOD on a monthly basis. So it's dramatically grown in terms of viewership across the board. And it's a flywheel approach. You see that there was lot more content coming in, a lot more connected TVs being sold, a lot more advertising dollars following that, and hence that's bringing in more investment into content. As Nick was talking about earlier, it was about getting content that was not available on cable TV through FAST.
Now it's actually mainstream content coming in. Some of the biggest cable networks are coming in, jumping onto the FAST bandwagon, building either single IP channels focusing on specific shows or a larger portfolio based on specific sub-genres. That's happening in a big way. Platforms are starting to build a lot more again, to Phillip's point, a lot more original programming content as well. So, huge transformation happening. We saw, as a company, our viewership grow by about two and a half times just last year over the previous year. It's been a fantastic growth across the board, overall.
Chris Pfaff: That's pretty astonishing. And by the way, I think that was probably Kedar Mohite's report from Omdia that you cited. So, shout out to Kedar.
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