Black Americans continued to be underserved in free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels according to a new analysis from Variety. From January 2022 through January 2023, the percentage of total domestic FAST channels focused on Black content has been steady at around 2% of the total market, which is considerably less than the 14% of the United States population that Black people comprise.

Moreover, market research company Horowitz Research found that 60% of Black consumers view Black-focused content on a weekly basis and that the proportion of Black households with TV subscriptions decreased from 88% in 2017 to 61% in 2021. In other words, Black viewers of conventional TV are fewer in number, and they seek out programming that reflects their culture, but this can be hard when there are so few options.

Black FAST channels are showing some indications of improvement, despite the overall lack of content. More channels are available now than at this time last year on the vast majority of larger services, with Freevee (seven new Black-focused channels), Plex (six more), and Local Now, Roku Channel and Tubi (each adding four) showing the greatest growth, according to Variety.

Smaller services are also making headway. In August, Vizio added the “Bounce XL” channel, which broadcasts scripted sitcoms and dramas from Black creators and with Black casts. And in November, nine new FAST stations from AfroLand TV were added to the lineup of FAST Channels TV, an over-the-top (OTT) platform.

Even with the improvement, Variety notes that FAST services are not always to blame for the lack of Black content. As different entertainment companies attempt to take advantage of the market’s fragmentation by capitalizing on consumers’ desire to watch Black-focused content, a lot of Black content is kept locked away on streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) services.

However, it’s unlikely that a Black consumer will sign up for every service, so smaller services like BET+, Brown Sugar, and ALLBLK will compete with larger SVODs, eventually reducing the amount of content that can be accessed by a single user.

This, the analysis notes, is where FAST could be useful. FAST could be a part of a more comprehensive distribution strategy, where premium content is shown linearly and viewers must subscribe in order to watch it on demand and at their own pace. This would replace upsell channels, which are designed to entice viewers into subscribing to premium services by showing lower-tier content.