Strategic intelligence for media executives navigating the attention economy. Covers platform positioning, audience behavior, content strategy, and the convergence of streaming, social, and live entertainment. Where FASTMaster's data meets forward-looking analysis on where the media industry is actually heading.
Media Strategy
When Roku launched Howdy in August 2025 at $2.99 a month, the trade press was mostly polite. TechCrunch ran it straight. CNBC framed a sober expansion into ad-free territory. Streaming Media called it a thoughtful complement to The Roku Channel. The framing I heard in conversations inside the category
Media Strategy
A 6-year-old reports a cursed Labubu at after school the way you'd report rain. 481.6 million Netflix streams, two Oscars, and WrestleMania's third-best merch seller confirm it. Gen Alpha voted for demons, hauntings, and curses — across five categories. The industry hasn't caught up.
Media Strategy
The startup behind Carousel on what a 148% engagement jump really means — and where this goes next.
The Attention Economy Series
Gen Z didn't kill television. The misunderstanding worth correcting is thinking television is something legacy media still owns. It isn't. The audience switched networks ten years ago. Only the operators who accept it will program the next decade.
The Attention Economy Series
Better app. Better FAST. Better content. Three foundational delusions are still costing legacy media billions of dollars and years of strategic time. All three lost their argument. None has died.
The Attention Economy Series
A broadcast network was never just a distribution channel — it was a gatekeeping apparatus. The Control Layer's gatekeeping function has migrated to two new classes of operators. Neither one works for legacy media.
Media Strategy
The distribution layer of modern television is controlled by two companies headquartered in Mountain View and Los Angeles. Neither sends a representative to the Television Academy gala. The data is unambiguous. The industry just refuses to state it plainly.
The Attention Economy Series
Continuous. Lean-back. Zero-click. Programmed-by-someone-else. Those are the four traits that defined linear television in 1995 — and the four traits the YouTube CTV home delivers in 2026. The cable box was never the product. The couch was.
The Attention Economy Series
YouTube now takes more US television viewing than Netflix. Viewers stream over 1 billion hours of YouTube on connected TVs every day. The audience didn't leave the lean-back ritual — they handed it to algorithms legacy media doesn't program.
Media Strategy
A preview of FASTMaster Intelligence's new report on how to evolve content for the Gen Z era.
FASTMaster on FAST
How YouTube Stations Will Cap Legacy Linear's Growth Ceiling and Strangle Its Future Audience
Media Strategy
Gen Z doesn't have a fried attention span; their brains simply demand multi-layered sensory stimulation. From Sludge Content and Lore Dumps to Reacts and Fancams, discover the six hyper-kinetic video formats dominating youth watch time and learn how legacy media can weaponize them to win back CTV.