AI Turned a FAST Library Into TV. Engagement Rose 148% [EXCLUSIVE]

Fairground Entertainment's Carousel platform proves the economics of AI-produced programming — and the industry should pay attention

A Barcelona-based FAST operator just reported a 148% jump in viewer engagement. The mechanism behind it matters more than the number.

Fairground Entertainment this week announced the wide-market launch of Carousel, an AI platform that turns streaming libraries into fully-produced, avatar-hosted television. Feed it a catalog and its metadata and it outputs broadcast-ready programming — countdowns, highlights reels, premiere showcases — narrated by a multilingual AI host with custom sets, in 90-second, 12-minute, or 22-minute formats, at a fraction of traditional production cost.

The proof of concept is Love TV Channels, a European FAST operator distributing across Samsung TV+, Titan OS, and Amazon, amongst other channels. Their jointly produced show Check Them Out — an AI-hosted countdown of streaming premieres — became the flagship title on their Trailers channel. Between September 2025 and April 2026, average viewer engagement rose 148%. Love TV Channels subsequently converted their pilot arrangement into a long-term strategic partnership.

The number matters because it addresses the core structural problem FAST has never solved. Channel operators can license old content cheaply. What they have never been able to afford is the connective tissue — hosted segments, countdowns, curated intros — that turns a playlist into a channel with personality. A weekly 12-minute hosted show costs five figures per episode at minimum with traditional production. For platforms running on $3–5 CPMs in Europe and around $10 in the US, that math has never worked. Carousel changes the denominator.

This also creates a meaningful change in what’s possible within FAST. The current FAST market sees total hours watched increasing at a faster clip than new customers (translation: those who are using FAST are loving it, but new converts are getting more difficult to find with current content), with ad revenues declining as views go up. This means that FAST channel partners, already seeing large portions of revenue go to platforms, have less money to invest back into channels. All this at the same time as agencies saying “show us higher quality content.” It’s a catch-22.

Fairground offers a real solution to this. Original material from existing content can be created, whether to intro a show, be its own show with a host, or shoulder content to fire up when an ad-break isn’t filled (a much more effective and customizable version of the house ad). And as the Love TV Channels experiment shows, it’s a real boost to discoverability.

The implications extend beyond FAST. The same format — a short AI-hosted intro contextualizing a film before it plays — works as a product layer inside any AVOD or SVOD platform. A 90-second hosted intro that plays before a catalog title isn't just marketing; on an ad-supported platform it's inventory. On a subscription platform it could be a tool for deepening engagement with older content that would otherwise churn subscribers out. The Criterion Channel has demonstrated audiences will pay for exactly this kind of curation. Carousel makes it available at a cost structure any mid-tier platform can justify.

Fairground was founded by Colin Petrie-Norris, who previously created Xumo, one of the streaming industry's earliest and most influential FAST platforms. Love TV Channels, based in Barcelona and supported by the EU MEDIA Programme, was co-founded by Teresa López and distributes premium thematic channels across Western Europe.

Carousel is available now. The waiting list for operators who have been hoping someone would solve this problem just got shorter.

Fairground Entertainment: fairground.tv | Love TV Channels: lovetvchannels.com