Free ad-supported streaming is one of the fastest growing areas in cord cutting in 2024. Now according to Maria Rua Aguete, the Senior Director from Omadia, there are more than 2,000 free ad-supported live channels in the United States with more than 600 in the United Kingdom and 400 in Spain.
This lines up with a report from Gavin Bridge, the FastMaster, who has added them up. There are now 5,264 free ad-supported channels available across 18 streaming services worldwide. In the United States, there are about 2,000 free ad-supported channels.
“The domestic FAST space is definitely maturing. As this report will show, the growth in available channels has begun to slow as the market approaches 2,000 unique channels across tracked services, but it still continues to grow month-to-month,” said Bridge.
This all comes as major entertainment giants like Warner Bros. Discovery have jumped all in on free channels, with 46 free channels streaming on multiple services, including Tubi and The Roku Channel.
Paramount has also been aggressive in launching a free new channel for its Pluto TV streaming service.
As cord cutters look for ways to cut costs, increasingly free ad-supported streaming services have been what they are turning to in 2024. To meet this demand worldwide, streaming services have been quickly launching new channels.
This demand for free services is expected to drive up ad revenue to over $12 billion by 2028. $10 billion of it is expected to be just from the United States and explains why so many companies are rushing to get in on the free ad-supported market. Now a growing number of media companies are looking into how they can take advantage of this growing market.
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