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The Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, and a handful of others will collectively draw over 115 million US viewers this year. FAST platforms aren鈥檛 subject to subscription fatigue or pricing pressures, positioning them to capitalize on other services鈥� losses in the coming zero-sum time spent environment.

As streaming subscription prices increase, viewers are becoming more amendable to ad-supported tiers.

This is the Q1 2025 installment of our quarterly 鈥淎d Spending Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.

Tubi, for example, is projected to grow viewership 5.9% YoY in 2025, per our forecast, driven by Super Bowl streaming and the 2024 election cycle. Amazon鈥檚 Q2 growth will be more moderate, but Walmart is surging. Retail media is one of the sectors with the greatest exposure to tariffs, and Q1 signaled uncertainty about the months ahead.

Mischief @ No Fixed Address, a creative agency that鈥檚 handled social for brands like Pizza Hut, which has incorporated influencers into campaigns for brands including Tubi and eos Products. Movers+Shakers, a social-first creative agency acquired by Stagwell last year, which has worked on creator-driven campaigns for Nerf, Madewell, and e.l.f. Beauty.

In April 2024, Tubi and The Roku Channel each accounted for more than 1.0% of total TV viewing time. Tubi registered the largest, with 1.7%. FAST ad revenues are poised to expand. In 2025, FAST US ad revenues will reach $6 billion, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Video ad spending continues to outpace overall digital ad spending and will power the fastest-growing ad-supported media.

The emergence of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels like Pluto TV (whose Canadian distribution rights are held by Corus Entertainment) and Tubi (whose distribution rights are owned by Rogers Sports & Media) is also bolstering time spent with digital video. Listening favors digital audio over radio. Digital audio will account for 56.9% of total time spent with audio in Canada in 2024.

Tubi. US Census Bureau. YouGov.

But another way people spend more time watching YouTube on a TV than they spend watching Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Peacock, Paramount Plus and Max combined. It's just a staggering amount of time people are spending on this platform.

Advertisers and tech vendors look to capitalize on CTV鈥檚 growing importance in digital advertising.

Super Bowl viewership likely slipped: Taylor and Trump probably weren鈥檛 enough to top last year鈥檚 123.7 million viewers.

The future of Super Bowl advertising is multi-platform: Brands are investing in second-screen engagement and digital-first campaigns to maximize impact beyond the game.

This is the first installment of our quarterly 鈥淎d Spending Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.

However, YouTube and FAST services like Pluto TV and Tubi can provide additional context on the state of ad-supported streaming. Excluding YouTube, three of the top six streaming services with the most ad-supported viewers in 2024 will be FASTs: The Roku Channel, Tubi, and Pluto TV. These services tend to attract casual viewers.

Like with premium SVOD services, there鈥檚 fierce competition for viewers from digital players like Tubi, Pluto, Vizio WatchFree+, and others. Google is not a leading US smart TV provider, but its 20 million monthly viewers and YouTube鈥檚 enormous reach still makes it a valuable platform for content providers.

Then the number of streaming services commissioning original shows grew from Netflix and Hulu to include Apple TV+, Disney+, and even free services like The Roku Channel and Tubi. Now there aren鈥檛 any new major streaming services on the horizon. In fact, some streaming services could merge, which would reduce the number of options studios have to sell their content.