From 12-15 September at IBC2025 in Amsterdam (Stand 5.H54), Scalstrm will be exploring how streaming infrastructure is evolving to support the FAST and ad-supported era.
The opportunity for growth is clear, but so is the pressure. Broadcasters, Pay TV operators, and streaming services are being pushed to scale faster, monetize smarter, and do so without the burden of over-provisioned infrastructure.
The FAST Opportunity and the Infrastructure Gap
The economics of video are shifting rapidly. Legacy broadcast and Pay TV revenues are shrinking, with global losses of US $42 billion expected between 2024–2029, even as streaming grows by US $93 billion. Within this streaming market, global FAST revenues are expected to approach US $12 billion by the end of 2025, with further growth taking the market to nearly US $17 billion by 2030.
In Europe, FAST revenues are forecast to almost double, reaching US $3.2 billion over the same period. Meanwhile, the AVOD streaming market is already valued at US $40 billion in 2024, with projections that it will surpass US $150 billion by 2034. Audiences are embracing this shift. Nearly half of all premium subscriptions now come through ad-supported tiers, and by early 2025, these tiers represented almost 60% of new sign-ups.
Australia alone saw AVOD adoption jump from just 10% in 2023 to 34% by mid-2025. Advertisers have followed suit, with connected TV spend set to exceed US $55 billion by 2030, growing almost 30% year over year.
The growth is undeniable, but so are the strains it places on infrastructure.
The Growing Pains of Legacy Systems
For many operators, ad insertion technologies still carry the limitations of a different era:
- Manifest bottlenecks → During big live moments, ad decisioning and manifest stitching slow down, creating startup delays and even failures when millions tune in at once. The result? Frustrated viewers and wasted impressions.
- Catch-up TV & nPVR ads “fixed at start” → Ads are locked in when playback begins, meaning higher value bids later in the stream are never realised. Operators leave money on the table.Low-latency trade-offs → Stitching steps add delay, undermining the very responsiveness audiences expect from live streaming.
- Creative readiness gaps → Mismatched ad quality or missing transcodes force fallbacks to house ads, hitting both viewer experience and revenue.
- Measurement blind spots → Advertisers lack interactivity and fraud detection, limiting confidence in campaign performance.
- Unpredictable cost models → Costs scale linearly with impressions or even in some cases with insertions, regardless of weather the ads are ever successfully shown.
In a FAST and AVOD world, these inefficiencies are not simply technical hiccups, they cut directly into economics, trust, and the viewing experience.
A New Model Emerging
To address these challenges, some platforms are beginning to rethink infrastructure from the ground up. Rather than relying on static capacity or monolithic workflows, software-native designs are breaking processes into microservices that scale independently. This makes infrastructure elastic: expanding instantly when millions tune in and contracting once traffic subsides, without operators being locked into overspending.
Workflows that once created friction are being re-engineered. Manifest generation and ad decisioning can now run in parallel to reduce bottlenecks. Catch-up and nPVR sessions can refresh dynamically, allowing higher-yield ads mid-playback. Creative assets can be fetched and prepared in advance or transcoded just-in-time to avoid mismatches and standardized APIs make ad events more transparent, giving advertisers the measurement and accountability they demand.
The result is an infrastructure model that is more flexible, more efficient, and more in line with how audiences actually consume ad-funded TV today.
Moving Forward with Confidence
2025 is already a watershed year. Viewers expect seamless, personalized experiences. Advertisers expect scale and precision. Operators that invest now in FAST-native infrastructure will be best positioned to lead, while those who cling to static systems will be forced to catch up.
We have seen how early adopters are already capturing new revenue streams by shifting their workflows to more elastic, software-driven models. The lesson is clear: the future belongs to infrastructure that adapts in real time, rather than systems built for yesterday’s television.
At Scalstrm, our role is to make that transition smoother, faster, and more sustainable.
Meet Us at IBC2025
We’ll be in Amsterdam from 12–15 September at Stand 5.H54, showcasing how infrastructure built for the FAST era can unlock new growth for operators.
