Disney is thinking about giving it away for free.

On its Aug. 5 earnings call, CEO Josh D'Amaro said the company is exploring launching FAST channels. Free, ad-supported, no subscription required. The rationale: reach price-sensitive viewers, sell more ads, and funnel people up into Disney+.

Why it matters: Disney spent a decade teaching people its content was worth paying for. Now it's asking whether some of that content is worth more when it's free.

The catch: Whether that's a good idea comes down to two numbers almost nobody in this business has actually looked up. How many shows there are, and how our attention gets split among them.

Let's break it down into 3 big questions:
1) How many shows came out last year?
2) Is each show getting more attention?
3) What are we actually competing against?

Quick answer: 1,122. Down 34% from 2022.

TV show premieres (Luminate):
1) 2022 - 1,695
2) 2023 - 1,353 (↓ 20%)
3) 2024 - 1,266 (↓ 6%)
4) 2025 - 1,122 (↓ 11%)

This is the number everyone is quoting. Peak TV is over, the bubble popped, discipline is back.

What it means for Disney: On this number alone, launching a FAST looks like scavenging. Fewer shows, less competition, so why give anything away?

Hold that thought.

On the surface, yes. On the surface, yes. And it's the most misleading stat in this newsletter.

Shows are down 34%. Time spent with TV is flat. The math is unavoidable.

% change between 2022-25:
1) Time spent with TV - ↑ 0%
2) TV show premieres - ↓ 34%
3) Time/show - ↑ 52%

That's a complete reversal of 2012-22, when scripted shows grew 185%, and the average audience per show fell 63%. Our argument back then was that advertisers should buy audiences, not shows.

So does a 52% recovery mean we were wrong?

No. It means we were measuring the wrong denominator, and so is everyone else.

That 52% divides all TV time by shows that premiered last year. It assumes the thing a new show competes against is other new shows.

It doesn't.

Quick answer: Everything ever made, and it's winning.

Library content now takes 78% of streaming hours. Originals get 22%.

Share of TV viewing for library content (Luminate):
1) 2025-Q1 - 76%
2) 2026-Q1 - 78%

Bottom line: Library content gets 3X the attention as originals.

Meanwhile, the shelf keeps growing:

TV titles (Nielsen):
1) 2019 - 646K
2) 2023 - 1M

% change between 2019-23:
1) Time spent with TV - ↑ 14%
2) Total number of TV titles - ↑ 55%
3) Time/show - ↓ 27%

Studios cut production by a third. Nobody took anything off the shelf. Attention per title kept falling the entire time.

That's the reversal. Fewer new shows, and yet more crowding, because the competition was never the new shows.

The bottom line: A FAST isn't a consolation prize for Disney. It's the highest-return use of assets it already owns and already paid for.

What we're watching: whether Disney puts real library titles on these channels or holds them back to protect Disney+ subscriptions. That choice tells you whether this is a strategy or a press release.

For advertisers, the through-line hasn't changed:

More TV shows → More fragmented attention → Buy audiences, not content.

Director's note: Two datasets in this issue. Premiere counts are Luminate, 2022-25, all TV shows. The scripted-only series we've cited historically is John Landgraf's FX tally, which ran 2015-23 before being discontinued. They count different universes and shouldn't be read as one line.

Flashback: The Four(ish) Horsemen of Algo TV