Amagi Report: FAST Growth Is Strong, But Metadata Is Becoming a Major Revenue Problem
Amagi’s latest quarterly analysis of global FAST trends shows a market that continues to grow rapidly, but also one facing a serious operational challenge.
According to the June 2026 Airtime Report, global hours of viewing grew 55% year-over-year, while ad impressions increased 53%. The report is based on approximately 6,500 FAST channel deliveries distributed through Amagi Thunderstorm, the company’s server-side ad insertion platform, comparing April 1 to June 15, 2026, with the same period in 2025.
The U.S. and Canada remain the largest monetization markets, representing 54% of global hours viewed and 74% of global ad impressions. LATAM saw the strongest regional growth, with hours viewed up 190% and ad impressions up 124%.
Entertainment remains the top global genre, accounting for 41% of classified viewing hours and 40% of ad impressions. News also performed strongly, generating 27% of viewing hours but 33% of ad impressions, making it one of the strongest monetizing genres. Kids content posted the highest growth, with viewing hours up 191% and ad impressions up 118%.
But the report’s biggest takeaway is that poor metadata is now a major commercial and operational issue for FAST. A pulse survey of 28 senior industry practitioners found that 86% believe metadata problems are costing them money through lost ad revenue, weaker discovery, or platform deprioritization. The same percentage said reformatting metadata for different platform requirements is their biggest operational burden.
The survey also found that 71% believe metadata from content owners is often incomplete, missing key fields such as genres, ratings, images, or episode details. Many respondents expect AI to play a growing role in solving the problem: 57% said AI can already generate synopses, tags, and genres reliably enough for human review to become mostly a spot-check, while 68% expect AI to handle most metadata generation with minimal oversight within three years.
“FAST has earned its place at the center of the modern media stack,” said Srinivasan KA, Amagi’s co-founder and president of global business. “What this report makes clear is that the next competitive edge isn’t reach; it’s operational precision.”
The report suggests that as FAST scales, metadata quality will increasingly determine how content is discovered, monetized, and prioritized across platforms.
