FAST Channel Data schedule and catalogue metadata for free ad-supported streaming channels

The information needs of a FAST service overlap with linear TV but are not the same. FAST Channel Data is designed around the differences:

• Channels are fluid. FAST channels are created, retired and re-programmed far more frequently than broadcast channels. The metadata has to keep pace with new channels and changing loops without manual rebuilding each time.
• The schedule is a loop, not a one-off broadcast. Programming often repeats on a cycle. The same title recurs many times across a week, so each airing needs its own accurate slot data while still resolving to one shared record for the content itself.
• Discovery happens in software. There is no printed guide and no remote-control channel number; viewers find content through an on-screen guide, search and recommendation rails. Clean titles, accurate genres, artwork and descriptions are what make a channel findable at all.
• Monetisation depends on knowing the content. FAST is ad-funded. The better each programme is identified, classified and rated, the better a platform can place advertising appropriately and surface the right content — so metadata quality feeds revenue directly, not just the guide.
• It serves a different buyer. FAST Channel Data is for CTV platforms, FAST aggregators and channel operators, where the priority is breadth of channels, speed of onboarding and discovery-ready data — not the same priorities as a pay-TV operator's branded guide.

Like linear television, FAST has two distinct layers, and FAST Channel Data models both.

• The event — a slot in the loop: a specific channel, at a specific point in the cycle, for a specific duration. On FAST this slot recurs, so the same content appears as many events across the schedule.
• The content — what fills the slot: the film, episode or show, with its title, people, description, images and classification.

Content is described once and reused across every event it appears in. That is what keeps a FAST guide coherent even when a title airs forty times a week across several channels: the same synopsis, cast and artwork everywhere, while each airing carries its own correct timing and channel.

The same identity layer that underpins our linear EPG runs through FAST Channel Data — and it matters even more here, because FAST content is so widely duplicated across channels and platforms.

• Content ID — every film, series, season and episode carries one permanent ID, so the same title is recognisably the same whether it runs on one FAST channel or fifty, on one platform or several. Match once, stay matched.
• Person ID — actors, directors and presenters each have one stable ID across every title they appear in.
• Franchise / brand IDs — related titles group under one identity, so a franchise holds together across the channels carrying it.

Because identity is permanent and shared, a platform aggregating hundreds of FAST channels doesn't end up with the same film as hundreds of disconnected entries.

FAST is a cross-border business: the same channel concept is often launched in several markets. FAST Channel Data is built around the same separation as our linear product — language-independent core facts stored once, and language-dependent text delivered per market.

• Language-independent (stored once, shared): Content ID, original title, production year, duration, country of origin, cast/crew as Person IDs, genre and classification as dictionary codes, age-rating codes, franchise IDs.
• Language-dependent (a real version per market): local title, short and long synopses, cast names in the locally correct form, role and genre labels.

So the same FAST channel can be served in multiple markets with each viewer seeing correct local titles, descriptions and names — without you translating anything yourself, and with no risk of one market's genre or year drifting from another's.

FAST Channel Data connects beyond the loop. Titles and people link to Festival & Awards Data — festivals and awards with categories, nominees and winners — so a film on a FAST movie channel can be surfaced as an award winner, and a discovery rail can be built around accolades. The shared identifiers make these links automatic.