Sneak Preview: FASTER, FASTER! Automating Linear CTV Channel Lifecycles From Launch to Monetization
On Wednesday, Nov. 11, Michael Nagle, Founder and CEO, Ashling Digital, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel “FASTER, FASTER! Automating Linear CTV Channel Lifecycles From Launch to Monetization.” This session explores how broadcasters and streaming platforms can dramatically accelerate the launch, management, and monetization of FAST channels by automating traditionally manual workflows across content ingestion, scheduling, and ad insertion. We’ll also discuss aspects of channel building where human intervention remains critical. Attendees will learn practical strategies and real-world case studies for compressing channel lifecycle timelines while maintaining quality and scaling operations efficiently across today’s sprawling CTV landscape.
Confirmed panelists include:
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Michael Nagle is the head of sales and distribution for Connecting America. He is the founder and CEO for Ashling Digital, where he assists FAST channels with distribution, marketing, and partnerships. In 2023, Nagle was honored as one of “Gannett’s Greatest” for Diversity & Inclusion. He also teaches advertising and marketing communications at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York.
“FAST has gained traction in 2026 with platforms seeking to increase engagement,” Nagle says. “In a world of rising subscription prices and more viewing options than ever before, starting a FAST channel requires all of the time, dedication, and maintenance that broadcasters had to have to ensure amazing branding, including the ability to showcase what your brand is about, communicate what content you have and when it’s available, and to identify your must-watch programming.” Luckily, he notes, many tasks, such as ad insertion, scheduling, and verticalization, can be automated. But QA should only be done by humans. “It’s especially important for live programming, when unexpected things can happen,” Nagle explains. “You also want humans watching your channel who understand your brand promise.”
Marketing and promotion isn’t necessarily a simple process, so “having humans involved ensures that you’re getting promotion for specials and stunts to drive performance,” he continues. “The revenue declines in the past 5–7 years can be attributed to erosion of pay TV like cable and satellite, as well as a lack of understanding on Madison Avenue about the power of streaming.” When there’s not enough data, it leads to less confidence among advertisers and low fill rates, Nagle adds. “The goal of this panel is to harness the power of automation without sacrificing content and quality of FAST channels, the platforms carrying them, and also to make sure that we keep smart people in the industry to continue guiding it well into the future.”
Abhishek Neralla is senior director of media and content services at A+E Global Media. Neralla works on setting video strategy across all of A+E Global Media’s consumer-facing AVOD and SVOD sites and apps. He manages the end-to-end delivery of video content, from source mezzanines, going through encoding and delivery, to clients on a variety of devices.
“At A+E Global Media, we are very proud of our portfolio of premium, high-performing FAST channels, over 70 to date, with additional channels emerging often, and with partners in the United States and around the world. In success, we have found that FAST channels get launched at a rapid pace. Every new channel brings its own partner specs, metadata requirements, and delivery format, and that complexity adds up fast,” Neralla shares. “The fix is to automate the repetitive handoffs around ingest, metadata, and scheduling so a new launch is configuration rather than reinvention, and to reserve people for exceptions and partner-specific judgment calls. Anyone running more than a handful of channels, or planning to, will recognize these challenges, and we’ll get into what’s actually worked.”
Stuart Bishop is the founder and CEO of Katapy. Recognizing early that the future of television would move toward internet-based, direct-to-consumer distribution, he founded Katapy with a simple objective: make sophisticated broadcast and streaming technology easier to deploy, operate, and scale. Today, Katapy provides an integrated media operating platform that brings together video content management, live streaming and DVR, broadcast master control, linear and FAST channel creation, OTT applications, global video delivery, advertising and SSAI, subscriptions, pay-per-view, audience management, AI-driven automation, and real-time analytics.
“The next evolution of FAST isn’t about removing people from the process—it’s about removing repetitive work. Automation should handle ingest, transcoding, scheduling, distribution, ad insertion, and even AI-driven content creation, while people focus on what machines can’t replace: programming strategy, creativity, audience understanding and brand. At Katapy, our goal is simple: automate the complexity so a linear CTV channel can move from content to audience to revenue faster than ever,” Bishop says.
Mike Gange is vice president of Fubo Sports Network at FuboTV Inc., where he oversees production and operations for the company’s growing owned and operated FAST channels. He also contributes to the networks’ programming strategy, from live sporting events to sports talk shows and documentaries. Upon joining Fubo in 2019, he helped found Fubo Sports Network, the company’s marquee sports-focused channel. Prior to Fubo, Gange held prominent production roles at E!, Fusion Media Group, CBS, and more.
“The FAST space has evolved and grown rapidly within the past few years,” says Gange. “What was once a vehicle to monetize library content is now a home for new original programming and even live events. While creating and maintaining FAST channels has become more seamless with the ability to automate part of the process, the human element remains essential to connect with audiences in authentic and engaging ways, from programming to marketing and beyond.”
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