Premium streaming is maturing, and the industry is hunting for its next growth levers. At Amagi’s recent LA PLAY conference, Rich Greenfield, Partner and Media and Technology Analyst at LightShed Partners, spoke candidly with a room of content programmers, acquisition teams, and platform builders about where that growth could come from. He covered whether streamers are platforms or content suppliers, how vertical video and algorithms drive engagement, and how Wall Street sees FAST.
Key takeaways
- Premium SVOD is seen as maturing, so companies are turning to FAST, AVOD, linear streams, and vertical video. No single strategy has won, and Greenfield’s likely answer is “all of the above.”
- Every SVOD company will have to decide whether it is a platform or content that lives everywhere else. Greenfield expects more buyers for FAST content as a result.
- The real fight is for time and attention, and what the masses watch matters more than what critics think of the content.
- Discounted ad tiers have put pressure on CPMs. Greenfield expects the industry to consolidate into three or four platforms with real scale.
Why SVOD companies are turning to FAST, AVOD and vertical video
Is premium SVOD growth slowing down?
Greenfield says the question he gets most now is whether it’s time for “Good Luck Streaming,” a nod to the “Good Luck Bundle” he coined for cable years ago. He’s talking specifically about premium SVOD, where there’s a fear that the business is mature.
Over the last nine months, he says, the conversation has pivoted sharply toward how to leverage what companies already have and drive engagement in new ways. That could mean:
- FAST
- AVOD
- A linear stream on an SVOD service
- Vertical video
It isn’t just about Netflix, either. Everyone, he says, is watching YouTube, which he calls an “accelerating freight train sucking up as much industry time spent as possible.”
Which streaming strategy works best: FAST, AVOD, or vertical video?
Nobody knows yet. Greenfield says there’s no definitive answer on whether one strategy beats another, and the likely answer is “probably all of the above.” Companies should be experimenting widely to find what drives engagement, without spending an exorbitant amount of money.
Key takeaway: SVOD companies are widening their toolkit instead of betting on one format.
The war for viewer time and attention
How can streamers compete with Netflix and YouTube?
Greenfield points to Fox buying Roku. There are fears that Fox will make it “all Fox,” but he doesn’t think that’s the plan. His view is that Fox will use Roku as a real platform and aggregate as much content into The Roku Channel as it possibly can.
He also flags the creator economy as something everyone will want a piece of, not just YouTube:
- Netflix is moving “pretty aggressively” into the creator space.
- His new Sony TV greeted him with a pop-up asking him to install Instagram so he could watch Reels.
- YouTube Shorts has exploded on TV, and Instagram is pushing harder into it.
Does content quality still decide who wins?
Greenfield calls it a “war for time and attention,” the single most important thing these companies are fighting over. He says they’re finally starting to understand it.
Once you see it that way, he argues, the debate about who has the best show loses its grip. What matters is less what you or I think of a piece of content, and more what “the normies” actually absorb and watch.
Key takeaway: Platforms are aggregating more content and creator formats because time and attention are the goal.
Why CTV advertising CPMs are under pressure
Why is CTV ad pricing under strain?
Greenfield says ad-supported streaming has grown at an explosive rate. He points to Amazon’s move, which he places about two and a half years ago, and to Netflix scaling into a multi-billion-dollar business. Meanwhile, SVOD services that had maxed out on price for ad-free subscribers turned to deeply discounted ad tiers. The result, he says, is a lot of pressure on CPMs.
Will CTV advertising consolidate into a few platforms?
The question put to him was whether targeting could get so good that the whole category grows, regardless of how much is still shifting from linear. Greenfield thinks we get there, though he wants to see it first. He says it’s already happening at YouTube, where advertising is core to the business, and at Amazon. Amazon’s DSP helps channels on third-party platforms sell and target CTV ads better, which he says hurts some legacy ad selling and makes Amazon “certainly the disruptor.”
His guess is that the industry aggregates into three or four platforms. Amazon, YouTube and Netflix will be there, with one or two others at most, pulling together a tremendous amount of content.
Key takeaway: Discounted ad tiers are pressuring prices today, and scale and aggregation are central to where CTV advertising goes next.
More from the session: platforms, vertical video and Wall Street's view of FAST
- Platform or content? Every SVOD company must decide whether it is a platform or content that lives everywhere else. Greenfield expects more buyers for FAST content than ever before.
- Vertical video and algorithms: Vertical video isn’t going away, and short-form feeds generate far more signal than long-form viewing. He points to Bravoverse on Peacock, a TikTok-style feed built from Bravo content, as a concept other categories could copy.
- How Wall Street sees FAST: Every major company is now talking about the category, and Wall Street is looking for new growth vectors as core SVOD matures.
...and more in the full session.
What this means for FAST and CTV operators
The interviewer’s summary of the session: if you’re a content network, be in as many places as possible, because more destinations are opening up. If you’re a platform, diversify your content portfolio to compete with YouTube for time and attention. Across the session, Greenfield’s point is that engagement is the metric and no single tactic has proven itself.
Resources and next steps
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