Montreal – November 03, 2026 -- FAST platforms can no longer rely on the traditional 30-second pre-roll, and executives from Xumo, LG and Equativ say pause ads, shorter spots and direct sales are the way to protect CPMs. The panel, moderated by Stingray Chief Revenue Officer David Purdy at TVOT Montreal 2026, focused on raising revenue per hour without driving viewers away.

Pause ads and 6-second spots target CPM pressure

JF Cote, Board Member at Equativ, said younger audiences will not sit through long ad breaks, which is pushing the market toward 15-second and 6-second formats. Stefan Van Engen, VP of Content Programming and Partnerships at Xumo, said full-screen pause ads that trigger when a viewer pauses video-on-demand content are currently earning premium CPMs. Garrett Winkler, Head of LG Channels (US and Canada), said LG is testing interactivity, squeezebacks and overlays.

Amazon and Netflix supply turns inventory into a commodity

The panel said Amazon and Netflix are flooding the market with ad supply, which pushes down prices in programmatic auctions. Van Engen called for larger direct sales teams that sell specific audiences, genres and data layers instead of leaving revenue to automated auctions. Cote pointed to agentic AI as the next step in media buying, with buy-side AI agents negotiating directly with sell-side software for audience data. Winkler said hyper-personalization at scale will require AI.

Xumo ranks engagement above revenue per hour

Van Engen said his team's primary KPIs are time spent viewing and engagement. Adding pre-roll to everything could cause 60% of the audience to leave, he said, costing the platform all future engagement. Cote said: "If you lose the audience, you lose everything." He described yield management as the right balance.

Bundling and branded entertainment lead the forecasts

Winkler expects bundled and hybrid services that remove the silos between SVOD, TVOD and FAST inside a single OS experience. Van Engen predicts a sharp rise in branded entertainment on FAST, with brands funding and integrating into free content as they do in traditional television.