FAST TV: A Fast, Efficient, Substrate for Accessing Social Media and Streaming Content in the Age of Internet and Mobile

My mom is not the first person to leave a show on in every room of her house. But it’s increasingly alien behavior for a lot of us. If you’re like me, you’ve just gotten used to bingeing or watching Young Sheldon in bite-size clips on TikTok next to cake decorating videos. The primary way to just freely watch stuff and forget it, broadcast TV, is on a decline, and its great hope, ATSC 3.0, isn’t actually offering much hope. Cable is quickly merging with streaming as streaming grows larger every year. Viewing behaviors are shifting as a whole generation grows up watching content on their phone or laptop instead of the television. I like the way FAST TV offers the affordability of broadcast with the breadth of streaming.

In cities like Baltimore, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, New York, and others, you can access local CBS news stations, which makes it feel like you are using a linear TV instead of a FAST service. The app can be used on a range of smart TVs and other electronics, and on the web.

Three out of order episodes of Star Trek: Voyager were what I watched on the other side of the planet. I wasn’t needing to track where I was in a rewatch or make sure I didn’t miss a scene or episode. I was happy to leave it on while I vacuumed up dog hair because the stakes were lower.

And unlike more social media-driven stuff such as TikTok and YouTube — which also shove free content in your face for the low, low price of your attention on occasional ads — I wasn’t having to babysit Pluto. It wasn’t necessary for me to pick the next thing or let the algorithm start playing. I did not need to check my phone for the next show. I could just tune in on my TV and continue on with my day.

It also gives us something that broadcast TV always did better: a constant stream of content. I love all the choice I’m now afforded by the on-demand era, but the option of giving it up occasionally is nice, too. The person programming the Fighting Flicks channel takes the wheel sometimes.

The Comcast-owned Xumo Play is yet another FAST option you can try out. It includes a variety of local and national news channels, along with a wide range of networks that play movies, sports and crime shows. It’s pretty easy to browse through all the content as well, as you can either navigate through the live TV guide or pick from a list of different networks.

The Roku Channel also lists Premium content from services like Paramount Plus, Showtime, and AMC Plus, which you have to pay for. If you want to go any further, you need a subscription to the show if you want to play the first episode for free. This makes The Roku Channel seem like a cross between a FAST service, a traditional media store, and a hub for your subscriptions.

Now for the bad. If you have a Roku device, Amazon Fire TV, or a SAMSUNG smart TV, you can only watch it on your TV. If you prefer, you can use the service from the desktop site or mobile app.

Tubi is available on a number of platforms, including Android, iOS, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Xfinity X1, Xbox, Samsung smart TVs, Sony smart TVs, PlayStation, the web, and more. The complete list of supported devices can be found on Tubi’s website.

Freevee: An Amazon-owned service with live on-demand movies, shows, and apps for the LG, Samsung, and Sling smart TVs

Freevee — formerly called IMDb Freedive and then IMDb TV — is a FAST service owned by Amazon. And because this is an Amazon-owned product, that means you’ll have to sign in to your Amazon account (or create a new one) in order to actually use the service. Once you’re signed in, you can access a trove of on-demand movies and TV shows in an interface that looks a lot like Amazon Prime Video.

Freevee has originals like an Alex Rider series, a Judge Judy reboot and even a documentary about Post Malone and Luke Bryan. There’s some live content as well, including channels with news, reality shows, classics, and more, but it really feels like Freevee prioritizes on-demand shows.

There’s a Freevee app that you can access anywhere. It’s available on several smart TVs made by LG, Samsung, and Amazon, and you can also access it from streaming devices, including the Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, and Roku devices as well as on the web, Android, and iOS.

The over 200 channels on the service include ones dedicated to some of the shows you’ll often see on other FAST platforms, like Portlandia, Top Gear, and Ice Road Truckers. There are over 50,000 on-demand shows and movies in its collection. Flexibility and accessibility are what makes it stand out.

The content on Xumo Play doesn’t really stand out from the other services listed here, but it does have some (very cheesy-looking) originals as well as some semi-recent exclusive shows and movies that you can only stream on the service, like 2021’s Fortress and Catch the Bullet. Xumo’s software also helps power the FAST channels on Google TVs as well as the LG Channels app that comes built in on LG smart TVs, so you might notice some of the same content across all three apps.

In February, Sling introduced its freestream FAST service, which also includes a paid live TV subscription. It has 270 live channels and 40,000 on-demand titles. While you don’t have to sign up for a Freestream account, doing so allows you to unlock features that let you save channels, shows, and movies as well as create profiles for different members of your household.

And if you want to watch some more recent content, you can switch over to the Rent tab, where you can pay to rent a variety of films, like Creed and Tár. This obviously isn’t ideal if you can already access these movies on another streaming service, but it’s a nice option to have if you don’t mind paying a fee.

As it looks to expand its service, it has been building up on content. Last year, it added Top Gear, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and NCIS to the service and announced its plans to triple the amount of on-demand content it has on the platform this year through “new and expanded partnerships” with Lionsgate, Vice Media, and others.

It’s also been creating some of its own original channels, like the home improvement-focused Home. Made. Nation channel it launched in collaboration with A&E. Samsung TV Plus currently offers access to 220 different channels in the US, a small fraction of the 1,600 total channels it offers across 24 different countries.