News content on FAST represents high-value audience segment

More than one-third of news scenes on free ad-supported streaming TV channels met industry brand safety standards, according to a new report examining advertiser opportunities and audience behavior across FAST news environments.

The “CTV Trends Report: Rethinking Brand Safety and Audience Behavior on News Channels,” released by Wurl, found that 35.7% of analyzed news scenes were classified as fully brand safe across IAB-aligned categories. The report argued that broad genre-level exclusions may prevent advertisers from accessing premium inventory and highly engaged audiences.

News programming accounted for an average of 8.6% of all FAST viewing hours during the study period, with peaks exceeding 10% during major events, according to the report. Devices spending more than 90% of viewing time on news represented 7.4% of viewing hours across all FAST genres.

The report also found that a relatively small group of viewers generated the majority of news consumption. Heavy and habitual news viewers accounted for 6.4% of streaming devices but represented more than 80% of total news viewing hours.

“Brand safety has historically forced advertisers into an all-or-nothing approach with news,” Dave Bernath, CEO at Wurl, said. “But the reality is far more nuanced. Today, with scene-level contextual analysis, advertisers can evaluate the actual moment before an ad break rather than making assumptions about an entire channel or program. That changes the equation completely.”

According to the report, brand safety concerns in news programming were concentrated in a limited number of categories tied to real-world events, including Death/Harm, Violence and War/Conflict. Other categories commonly associated with advertiser concerns, including Drugs, Profanity and Sexual Content, appeared at comparatively low rates in news programming.

The report found that 43% of news scenes were flagged for death/harm content, compared with 34% for non-news programming.

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Violence and war/conflict each appeared in 31% of news scenes, versus 22% and 3%, respectively, for non-news content.

At the subgenre level, financial news showed the highest brand safety levels, with 86% of scene minutes classified as fully brand safe. Most other news formats ranged between 40% and 50% fully brand safe, according to the report.

The report also identified differences between politically oriented news environments. Blue-leaning news content was more heavily associated with death/harm and violence themes, while red-leaning news more frequently featured war/conflict framing and derogatory content. Overall brand safety rates between the two categories remained relatively similar.

Wurl said its scene-level analysis evaluates content immediately before ad breaks rather than applying controls at the channel or program level. The company said the approach allows advertisers to identify suitable placements within news programming instead of excluding the category entirely.

The report analyzed aggregated FAST platform data collected between March 2024 and April 2026, including scene-level analysis across 15 FAST news channels.