Putting the brakes on FAST

Over four in 10 Canadian households have cut the cord on cable TV, and now a new trend is quietly reshaping the audiovisual landscape: free ad-supported streaming television (FAST), with 400 of such services now available acoss the country.

Marie-Odile Demay-Degoustine, a lecturer in Université de Montréal's Department of Art History, Cinema and Audiovisual Media and a researcher with its Labo Télé unit, believes the rise of FAST undermines francophone and Indigenous culture in Canada.

With professor Marta Boni and doctoral students Frédérique Khazoom and Meganne Rodriguez-Caouette, she is sounding the alarm about the implications of this emerging business model, which largely escapes traditional regulation.

An article they co-authored on the subject was published in May in La Conversation, the Canadian French-language edition of the free international online media outlet The Conversation. UdeM is a founding partner of La Conversation.

According to Demay-Degoustine, the rise of FAST services is driven by widespread weariness with paid streaming platforms, which saw explosive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Many of us subscribed to Netflix, Amazon and Disney during the pandemic,” she explained. “Ultimately, we not only realized that it was expensive but we also started experiencing 'choice fatigue'.”

FAST platforms offer an attractive alternative: a return to TV that is free and accessible online. Like traditional television, FAST channels broadcast continuous programming with commercials every 8 to 10 minutes.

Viewers can access FAST services on "smart" television sets from brands like Samsung and Roku, via the Internet or through dedicated platforms such as the Pluto TV and Tubi apps.

A FAST channel may be carry a hit series such as CSI, Cheers or Mr. Bean, or be dedicated to a particular genre such as classic sitcoms, documentaries or reality TV, or live sports or national news—not to mention the virtual fireplace channel.

In Canada, FAST already reaches 24 per cent of consumers of online content. Its success is underscored by the major events now streamed on these platforms. In the U.S., 13.6 million viewers watched the 2025 Super Bowl on Tubi (owned by Fox Corporation).

For Demay-Degoustine, though, a major concern with FAST is its limited cultural representativity.

On Pluto TV Canada, she points out, only three French-language channels are available, while Tubi Canada has no French-language content at all. Indigenous content is also conspicuous by its total absence.

“It shows flagrant disregard for Canada’s cultural diversity,” Demay-Degoustine said.

Unlike Canada’s conventional broadcasters, which are strictly regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and required to carry 50 per cent  Canadian content, FAST services escape regulation.

They can fill their schedules with U.S. content that “crosses the border without being subject to Canadian regulation—it’s a real Wild West,” Demay-Degoustine said.

Social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are also part of the problem, the researchers believe, arguing that these platforms contribute to audience fragmentation and have similar data-driven monetization models.

In Canada, the traditional television financing model relies on the carriage fees paid by cable companies to the channels they carry. As more consumers cancel cable, these fees are declining. FAST services are therefore contributing to a shift that is pulling financial resources away from Canadian television production.

“This process creates a vicious circle," said Demay-Degoustine.

"With cord-cutting expected to reach 50 per cent of Canadian households soon, resources for local production will continue to dwindle. Francophone and Indigenous content, which are already struggling because of their small markets, will be particularly hard hit.”

Governments are trying to respond but their efforts seem to be lagging behind the times. In April 2023, Canada passed the Online Streaming Act, which requires services that generate more than $25 million to contribute 5 per cent of their revenues to the Canadian broadcasting system.

According to Demay-Degoustine, however, this approach overlooks important considerations: “No (specifically) cultural regulations have been introduced, and clear rules are not expected until 2026, leaving a regulatory vacuum for several years.”

In Quebec, the government's Bill 109 aims to enhance the discoverability of French-language content but its effectiveness remains to be seen. The bill is still under study and the accompanying regulations have not yet been drafted.

The UdeM researchers cite Australia as a possible model to follow. There, television manufacturers are required to include the country’s main channels in their default TV interfaces, and if they don't, face being fined.

A similar strategy could be applied in Canada, mandating the inclusion of CBC, Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec on smart-TV sets, Demay-Degoustine said. “First of all, we have to make Canadian and Quebec content visible. If viewers are only presented with American content, they won’t know that anything else exists.”

Once their research is complete, her research team plans to produce a comprehensive position paper on FAST services in Canada, drawing on interviews with international experts. They've also scheduled an international symposium in 2026 to discuss practical solutions to issues generated by the technology.

“With the right regulatory approach, FAST services could actually become a way to strengthen Canadian, Indigenous and Quebec cultural identities,” Demay-Degoustine suggested.