Fierce Video – FAST panel: We’re in early innings, but not too early to make some calls to the bullpen for help

The notion of TV that’s free to watch because advertisers underwrote it dates back to black-and-white broadcasting, but in the streaming universe FAST is new enough to look more like a pencil sketch than a finished concept.

A panel at the StreamTV Show here Tuesday, “The Televisioning of FASTS: From Programming to Monetization,” unpacked how the concept needs to be colored in.

Colin Dixon, chief analyst and founder of nScreenMedia, opened the 40-minute discussion by asking how far the concept had evolved.

“I would say we are super early,” replied Dave Bernath, VP of sales and partnerships for the Americas at Wurl. Citing a general lack of real-world familiarity with the concept and “nascent” audiences, he turned to a baseball analogy: “top of the first?”