As part of this week’s report about HBO Max pulling multiple shows from the streaming service, one of the pieces of reasoning was due to Warner Bros. Discovery licensing those shows out to FAST services.
FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming TV) is essentially the ‘sexy’ new moniker for AVOD (ad-supported video on demand), which covers services like Amazon’s FreeVee, Roku Channel, Pluto TV and others that require no subscription fee but do contain ads.
The most high-profile of the shows listed was “Westworld,” the convoluted sci-fi series that was a bit of a cultural phenomenon in its first season but quickly lost its appeal (and ratings) in subsequent seasons. Four seasons were ultimately produced with the show officially cancelled last month.
Now, THR is reporting that “Westworld” showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan were offered, and passed, on the possibility of producing a fifth season on a reduced budget for Warner Bros. Discovery’s own upcoming FAST platform (which hasn’t been named yet).
With the ratings reportedly having fallen from 1.8 million an episode for the first season, to the truly woeful 0.03 million viewers for the fourth season, WBD opted to cut its losses and leverage the show as a FAST tax write-off as an unnamed source tells the trade:
“The FAST service would allow them to have their cake and eat it, too. Get the write-off of pulling the show from the main service and do something new with it, too.”
Despite a fifth and final season not happening, the show’s main cast is still expected to get paid millions for it. Joy and Nolan, meanwhile, have moved on to the “Fallout” TV series at Amazon.
