CTV’s free streaming boom: What advertisers need to know from Wurl’s latest report

Free, ad-supported streaming TV isn’t just a passing trend — it’s quickly becoming a significant component of audiences’ television consumption. The growing shift of premium content into free channels is driving broader genre diversity, longer watch times, and lasting audience growth. For advertisers, this adds up to a massive, yet still largely underleveraged, opportunity to connect with audiences where they’re highly engaged.

Wurl’s newest CTV Trends Report unpacks how viewing behavior on free, ad-supported streaming channels is evolving — and what it means for marketers. Here’s a preview of some of the standout findings:

Audiences are expanding — and staying engaged

The audience for free streaming channels, also known as FAST, continues to expand:

• Household reach is up year over year, showing continued momentum even as the market matures.
  
• Hours of viewing per household has also risen, showing that free streaming TV is a sticky experience.
  
• This has led to a nearly 29% increase in total viewing time, thanks to the combination of new households and increased daily engagement.
  

In short: free, ad-supported streaming TV isn’t just growing — it’s sticking.

Viewers are watching longer & discovering more

Audiences are spending more time per channel and exploring more variety than before:

• Average channel session length is up 25%, meaning viewers are staying longer before switching channels.
  
• Most households still rely on a small core set of favorites, but the number of channels viewed per person has grown as much as 50%, depending on the platform.
  

This mix of channel loyalty and more exploration creates a rich environment for advertisers to balance reach with frequency.

A wide range of genres, a wide range of opportunities

The report also highlights the incredible diversity of content that keeps free streaming audiences coming back:

• Reality, Drama, and Documentary are among the top-performing categories in terms of household reach.
  
• However, to reach 90% of households advertisers would need to tap into content across 30 different genres — underscoring the scale and variety of the FAST ecosystem.
  

This breadth allows marketers to blend mass-market campaigns with more niche or targeted strategies — all while aligning messaging with the right moments and moods.

Free streaming TV remains a buyer’s market

Ad fill rate, which tracks how much available ad space actually gets sold, has dipped compared to previous years as supply continues to grow faster than demand:

• Last year saw a decline in fill rates, with advertiser demand lagging behind the surge in viewing time.

• Seasonality remains consistent, with fill rates lowest at the start of each quarter, bottoming out in January, and peaking in December as holiday budgets ramp up.

This shift works in advertisers’ favor. With more premium inventory available, less competition for ad slots, and new targeting solutions designed to drive demand, brands have a chance to lock in valuable placements at good rates while also tapping into innovative targeting strategies that will drive stronger campaign results.

---

Why advertisers should care

Free, ad-supported streaming TV is growing its slice of the media landscape and shaping the future of television. With audiences and engagement growing, and plenty of ad inventory available, free streaming channels offer brands the scale of traditional TV with the precision of digital.

Want the full breakdown? Download the complete CTV Trends Report from Wurl to see all the data, insights, and recommendations for marketers.