The time travel machine spits you out and it’s Friday night on a chilly fall evening in 1994.
You and your kids have finished a nice pizza dinner and you’re ready to relax from the week. You all smile at each other knowingly as you sit down on the sofa and turn on the TV to ABC: TGIF!
How many of the theme songs can you sing?
This appointment viewing, staple time slot broadcast from the mid-80s to 2000 and represented a simple, wholesome time for the family to kick back and watch 2 hours of TV, laughing at the family hijinx, tearing up at the heartfelt moments, and anticipating what would happen from the previous week.
TGIF was a wonderfully packaged vessel for family content that was steadily interrupted by advertisements. A stress-free transaction between families’ eyeballs and companies’ ad support. You didn’t have to pick what you were watching or binge the whole season, it was presented to you at a consistent time each week.
Let’s call this type of TV “Free Ad-Supported Linear TV” or FALT.
FALT was the format for TV until Netflix launched its streaming service in 2007. Until then, the only on demand viewing was when you popped a VHS or DVD into the player. If you turned on the TV, you just watched what was on, no ad skipping, no binging, no individualized price per network. You either watched what was on the main analog channels for free or paid for cable.
The key components of FALT:
✅ Limited channels
✅ Pre-scheduled content
✅ Weekly release (no binging)
✅ Non-skippable ads
✅ Mediocre content built to fill-in between quality content
Fast forward to today, and just like baggy jeans, chunky shoes, and oversized sweatshirts being cool today, the TV landscape is starting to resemble those halcyon days of the 90s.
Every streamer (we’re watching and waiting, AppleTV+…) has introduced an ad supported tier. You still get to pick what you watch, but you’re presented content with non-skippable ads, more often the top shows are released weekly, and ample, ample mediocre content built to fill-in between quality content.
✅ Non-skippable ads
✅ Weekly release (no binging)
✅ Mediocre content built to fill-in between quality content
Even more aligned to the pre-streaming days is the category of Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV or “FAST.” These providers like PlutoTV, Tubi, Xumo, Vizio Watchfree, Samsung TV Plus, etc. all provide a mix of on demand and pre-scheduled content, filled with non-skippable ads, limited channels, and mediocre (and often nostalgic) content to fill-in between quality content, and limited binging offered.
✅ Limited channels
✅ Pre-scheduled content
✅ Weekly release (no binging)
✅ Non-skippable ads
✅ Mediocre content built to fill-in between quality content
We call that FALT BINGO! The ‘streaming’ in FAST gives both the companies and the consumers more flexibility to choose their content, but these platforms are growing at 2x the rate of non-ad supported memberships and are an indicator that maybe the paid, on-demand model is more frustrating and stress-inducing to consumers than what we had before.
These platforms can’t be ignored because at the end of the day, they are much more like the legacy linear TV options that have existed since the beginning of broadcast TV in 1928.
It seems that people aren’t just nostalgic for clothing trends and content reboots, they are pining for the days when watching TV just meant turning on the tube, sitting down, and watching whatever was on.
