This shift is happening inside today’s RFP and direct-sales process, not in some future marketplace. Buyer agents are increasingly determining which publishers are considered, how their audiences are valued, and how quickly deals move. For publishers, the implication is immediate: if your inventory cannot be understood and evaluated by these systems, it risks being overlooked entirely.

Agent readiness is the work of ensuring that doesn’t happen. It is the process of preparing publisher data, audiences, and inventory to be discoverable, interpretable, and competitive in an environment where machines are the first point of evaluation.

There are two reasons to prioritize this work now rather than waiting for the agentic marketplace to mature:

1. The return on agent-ready infrastructure shows up in the current RFP cycle, not just in some future quarter when buyer agents become the standard.
2. The standards governing agentic advertising are being written right now, and publishers who wait will inherit rules that others have already defined.

See a shift by the next RFP cycle

The work that makes a publisher’s inventory available to a buyer agent has immediate value inside the current direct-sales motion. Agent readiness depends on a handful of foundational assets:

• A unified identity graph
• Audience segments enriched with verified third-party attributes & your own structured first party data
• Inventory packaging that answers what’s available, who you reach, and at what price

Each asset strengthens your next RFP response while preparing your inventory for agentic evaluation. Buyer agents are already querying publisher inventory at machine speed, and sales agents that can directly respond to them are emerging. When that agent-to-agent communication matures, deal cycles condense from weeks of human back-and-forth into minutes of structured exchange between systems. 

Signal and audience agents are already running on the publisher side, synthesizing and packaging audience data into outputs that sales and buyer agents can act on.

The payoff will show up within the quarter, long before the agentic marketplace fully develops.

Shape the standards being written today

Agentic advertising only works at scale if buyers and sellers share a common language for agents to discover audiences, negotiate deals, exchange brand safety signals, and enforce publisher-defined rules. Built on MCP, the Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) is defining how agents transact across the advertising ecosystem, and the IAB Tech Lab is running a similar agentic track with their AAMP framework.

What matters to publishers is that open, interoperable standards prevail, and that publisher interests shape the outcome. An interoperable standard gives your premium audiences a path to buyers beyond walled gardens. It lets a buyer agent discover, evaluate, and transact on the value of your inventory directly, at prices that reflect the value of your audience, without routing that value through a closed ecosystem or requiring manual negotiation at every step.

The working groups developing these protocols are open, and they need publisher voices to weigh in. A few ways to engage:

• Join the groups shaping the standards. Organizations like the AgenticAdvertising.org and  IAB Tech Lab run open agentic tracks. Membership gets you a seat in the conversations where standards are being defined.
• Assign a data or revenue strategy operator to attend. You don’t need a senior engineer, just someone who understands your inventory well enough to read proposals and respond.
• Submit comments on the decisions that affect your business. Share your opinions on inventory representation, audience description, pricing, brand safety, and consent.

How to become agent-ready

Buyer agents are moving faster than publisher workflows can keep up with. Three operational priorities close that gap:

• Assess honestly. Run a cross-functional audit across data engineering, ad operations, revenue, and legal to map where you stand across the pillars of agent readiness: data, inventory signals, content and context signals, technical infrastructure, and organizational awareness.
• Pilot on a real workflow. Pick one property, audience, or deal type. Configure an agent against that scope, establish a control group, and run it against live direct-sales RFPs over a defined window. Document performance and evaluate how you can move forward.
• Continue shaping the standards. Keep participating in these governance efforts as you run your pilot. The decisions being made in parallel to your work will define the marketplace that emerges.

Agent readiness is the prerequisite for the future of AI-powered media selling and agentic collaboration, and investing in it now benefits your manual and programmatic workflows today.

Start the Audit, Run the Pilot, and Claim Your Sea

Agent readiness is operational work that pays off inside your current workflow and positions your organization for the emerging agentic marketplace. The publishers who start the work now will enter that marketplace with a foundation their competitors are still scrambling to build.

About the author

Bennett Crumbling is a seasoned GTM professional with over a decade of experience with data-centric SaaS, advertising and marketing technologies, and media analytics. Currently, he is the Head of Marketing at Optable, the agentic audience platform for publishers, media companies, and their advertising partners. Outside of work Bennett is a husband and a father to two young daughters. He lives in Lancaster, PA and thrives on hiking, biking, camping, and experimenting in the kitchen.

The post Get ready for AI agents now, before buyer agents scale appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Before a deal ever reaches order management, it moves through pricing validation, proposal construction, revisions, and internal approvals. That process shapes how quickly deals close, how accurate they are, and how well they hold up in execution.

In many media organizations, this stage is still managed through manual coordination across systems and teams. Unfortunately, this can make pre-sales a structural tax on revenue capacity rather than a marginal annoyance.

Our survey of 500 media professionals revealed that teams pour significant effort into pricing validation, proposal revisions, and approvals. 77% of respondents reported recurring pricing or deadline errors and 44% say those mistakes derail work entirely. However, deals still close, which makes the system feel like it works.

The work no one sees: advertising pre-sales

It’s the normalization of that friction, where 92% describe themselves as satisfied with their tools despite the risk, tells a different story. Friction that doesn’t show up in one place, it’s built into the day-to-day work of advertising pre-sales.

It shows up as repeated, low-value work across the process. Teams check pricing across multiple systems that don’t fully align. They rebuild proposals as inputs change or feedback comes in. Approvals move through email threads where context is incomplete or buried. Details are re-entered or reformatted as work passes between teams.

In interviews with media leaders, teams consistently described working across CRM platforms, shared drives, spreadsheets, and email to assemble deals. Information is fragmented, and finding the right version is often part of the effort itself. As one leader put it, “email is my CRM.”

Taken together, this creates a system where progress depends on continuous coordination rather than a defined, structured flow of work.

Why it feels like existing processes work

If this level of effort is built into presales, why hasn’t this been addressed?

The answer is simple. The system still produces results.

Deals move forward. Revenue comes in. From the outside, the system appears to work.
But what’s hidden is the level of effort required to sustain that performance. Over time, that effort becomes part of the operating rhythm. It’s expected, absorbed, and rarely measured directly.

This is where perception starts to diverge from reality. Organizations report high levels of satisfaction with their current tools, even as manual errors and rework remain common.

Success is measured by whether revenue comes in, not by the cost or effort it takes to produce it. As long as deals continue to move forward, the underlying inefficiency remains largely invisible.

Where ad deals actually slow down

That gap in perception also shapes how delays are understood.When deals lose momentum in pre-sales, the instinct is often to attribute it to sales execution or responsiveness. In practice, the causes are overwhelmingly operational.

The data reinforces this. Survey data revealed that 32% of respondents cited client input delays, while 22% pointed to data and system issues and 21% to stakeholder coordination.

Each step depends on inputs from other systems and teams. When those inputs fall out of sync, progress stops and work must be rebuilt to reflect the latest information. Because that reconciliation is constant, delays tend to repeat rather than resolve, directly affecting time-to-revenue and the predictability of pipeline conversion.

Where scale starts to break

This model holds at lower volumes but becomes difficult to sustain as deal flow increases. More deals introduce more revisions, dependencies, and coordination across teams, and the workload grows with that complexity instead of being absorbed by the system.

As volume rises, inconsistencies become harder to contain, delays increase, and execution risk rises. At that point, the constraint is no longer demand, it is the organization’s ability to convert that demand into revenue efficiently.

Why this is an operating model problem

Advertising pre-sales is not managed as a system. It operates as a series of disconnected tasks. Information moves across email, spreadsheets, and multiple platforms, where it is gathered, reconciled, and updated by hand. There is no mechanism to keep pricing, proposals, and approvals aligned as deals evolve.

When inputs change, work has to be rebuilt. When approvals stall, teams compensate. The process holds together through effort rather than design, which makes revenue capacity a function of how much coordination teams can absorb.

Some organizations are starting to restructure this as an orchestrated workflow, where pricing, proposals, and approvals remain synchronized as deals change, reducing the need to rebuild work at each step.

What changes when pre-sales doesn’t break

When pre-sales is structured as a connected, orchestrated workflow, the nature of the work shifts. Instead of being rebuilt at each step, work progresses with continuity. Changes stay aligned as deals evolve, rather than triggering rework across systems and teams.

Coordination doesn’t disappear, but it becomes part of the process rather than something teams have to manage manually. Dependencies are handled within the workflow, not across disconnected tools and handoffs.

As deal volume increases, that difference shows up in how revenue moves. Deals progress with fewer interruptions, timelines become more predictable, and execution holds more consistently against what was sold.

Because advertising pre-sales defines the terms of the deal, it ultimately defines the quality of the revenue itself—how quickly it converts, how reliably it delivers, and how much effort is required to sustain it. When the process depends on coordination, growth requires more effort to keep pace. When the system maintains alignment, revenue grows, and with far less friction.

The post Why pre-sales determines how well revenue will scale appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Content classification approaches that are accurate, consistent, policy-driven and well-aligned with the expectations of advertisers and the broader industry are the foundation on which trust and confidence are built between advertisers and publishers. But as the industry evolves, a new set of unproven brand suitability vendors may be complicating advertisers’ ability to invest confidently in news. 

Evidence suggests these new tools and solutions do not adequately consider advertisers’ perspectives on risk and suitability, and they classify news content in ways that are not aligned with buyers’ needs and expectations. This misalignment risks damaging news publishers’ relationships with advertisers and weakening long-term revenue.

Data backs this up. A recent DoubleVerify (DV) survey collected feedback from 25+ advertisers across different industry verticals on content classified as “low risk” by new and unproven tools across three major news publishers’ sites. Although a tiny portion of marketers – just 1% – view all types of news content as unsuitable for their advertising, respondents to the survey said in 92% of cases that they considered this “low risk” content (as classified by these new tools) to be unsuitable and would actively wish to avoid it.

Consumer sentiment shows a similar trend. A DV survey of 295 U.S. consumers found that 26%, on average, would think less of a brand or respect it less if it appeared alongside the content categorized as “low risk” by these new vendors.

Maintaining advertiser trust

It’s tempting to believe that classifying large portions of news content as “low risk” might open up advertiser spending and drive additional revenue for publishers. However, in practice, the inverse is likely true. Classifications that do not reflect advertisers’ views could damage their ability to invest confidently in news or alienate them from news publishers entirely.

Many publishers understand that accurate and consistent classifications that meet advertisers’ expectations ultimately help them build trust and confidence with their partners. Brands in some verticals are particularly sensitive, publishers say, such as those selling luxury goods or operating in regulated industries.

Reliable, flexible and customizable tools therefore are critical for maximizing revenue for news publishers by enabling advertisers to avoid only content they deem unsuitable for their brands and campaign strategies. This approach is validated and supported by the advertiser community, including Wayne Blodwell, Global SVP Programmatic at Assembly Global.

Blodwell said that, “Trustworthy and accurate content classification is critical for enabling our clients to invest their budgets confidently — particularly in news environments. Reliable and consistent classification technology enables us to maximize our investment with news publishers while ensuring our clients’ varied suitability needs and preferences are met.”

Growing advertiser investment in news

Research continues to show that investing in news is smart business for advertisers, and that those avoiding it altogether are missing out on powerful opportunities to engage with valuable, high-performing audiences.

DV’s News Accelerator initiative has seen first hand that advertisers feel most confident investing in news environments when they have transparency, flexibility and control over the specific types of news content they align with. DV data also reveals that advertising on news content now drives 16% more engagement than non-news content, and advertising alongside news content typically outperforms other digital channels, according to marketers.

Ensuring content classification is accurate, reliable and scalable requires continued alignment across advertisers, publishers and technology providers. Without it, confidence in news environments will erode, along with the investment that depends on it.

About the author

Jack Marshall is the Head of News for DV. With nearly two decades of experience in digital media journalism and publishing, Jack leads DV’s efforts in the news sector, including DV’s News Accelerator initiative. The DV News Accelerator aims to align DV’s product innovation with the needs of the news industry, and encourage advertiser spending on news and journalism. 

The post Trusted content classification fuels advertiser spend on news appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Ad tech firms argue that behavioral tracking improves efficiency across the ecosystem. They maintain that it delivers more relevant ads, reduces wasted spending, and increases publisher revenue. The concern, however, is not simply whether tracking improves performance. It is whether, in a concentrated market, tracking reinforces the firms that control the infrastructure rather than delivering broad gains for advertisers, publishers, and consumers. 

New research puts that debate to the test. 

Economic Rationales for Regulating Behavioral Ads, by Pegah Moradi, Cristobal Cheyre, and Alessandro Acquisti, reviews economic evidence on behavioral advertising. The authors evaluate whether tracking delivers the efficiency gains intermediaries claim. They find that when a small number of firms control key parts of the system, behavioral advertising often strengthens those firms rather than delivering broad gains across advertisers, publishers, and consumers. 

A federal judge reached a similar conclusion about market structure in United States v. Google LLC. The court ruled that Google unlawfully maintains monopoly power in key segments of the ad tech market. It found that Google’s control over both the publisher ad server and the ad exchange enabled it to entrench its dominance across multiple layers of the stack, restrict alternatives, and distort competition. The case now moves into a remedies phase that will determine whether structural or behavioral changes are required. 

Together, the research and the ruling point to the same issue: control over infrastructure shapes outcomes in digital advertising. 

Intermediaries capture a large share of revenue 

The research examines how digital ad auctions allocate value as advertiser competition increases. As more advertisers bid to reach the same users, bidding pressure rises. The intermediaries operating those auctions capture a significant share of that incremental spending. Studies cited in the report show that dominant ad tech firms can take 30 percent or more of each advertising dollar that flows through the system. 

The authors do not argue that advertising lacks value. They argue that who controls the trading systems strongly influences how that value is divided. 

In the Google case, the court examines how control over publisher ad servers and exchanges affects competition. By maintaining dominance across multiple layers of the ad tech stack, Google gains the ability to influence pricing, auction mechanics, and access to demand. The court concludes that this structure harms competition. The ruling supports the conclusion that control over ad tech infrastructure plays a central role in shaping market outcomes. 

Behavioral targeting and market adjustment 

The report explains how behavioral targeting allows firms to group users based on data and earn more from certain audiences. It then examines whether this practice expands total value in the market or mainly shifts revenue among advertisers, publishers, intermediaries, and consumers. The authors find limited evidence that tracking consistently produces substantial new gains across the ecosystem. 

This finding shapes the debate over privacy regulation. Critics argue that limiting tracking would damage innovation and eliminate free digital content. After reviewing evidence from GDPR and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework, the paper finds little support for predictions of market collapse. Digital advertising continues, firms adjust their strategies and markets adapt. 

The report finds that when tracking declines, companies adapt. Competition shifts, but digital advertising and content remain in place. 

Ad infrastructure determines outcomes 

The debate over behavioral advertising comes down to two competing explanations. One holds that tracking improves ad performance and increases revenue across the ecosystem. The research challenges that claim. It shows that when a few firms control the data and auction systems, tracking often strengthens their market power rather than delivering broad gains. 

The court’s ruling in United States v. Google LLC reflects the same concern. Its findings about monopoly power and harmful tying focus on how control over key ad tech systems can distort competition. 

For premium publishers, this is not an abstract policy question. The rules of the system and who controls them shape outcomes. The federal ruling signals that the structure of digital advertising markets warrants continued scrutiny. As the remedies phase proceeds, changes could alter how value flows among advertisers, intermediaries, and publishers.  

Market structure determines who sets the terms of pricing, how bids clear, and whether investment in trusted content is rewarded through open competition. Sustainable digital markets require competition, transparency, and balanced bargaining power. Strong markets reward content creation and innovation rather than control over infrastructure and data extraction. The research and the courts have made one thing clear: digital advertising has reached an important inflection point. 

The post Ad tech dominance defines market power and pricing appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Based on what we’re seeing across the market, and reinforced by data shared in MediaRadar’s State of the Industry: 2026 Advertising Predictions webinar, let’s dive into three trends we’re predicting will shape how buyers allocate budgets in 2026 and how publishers must evolve to capture share.

1. Buyers are planning around outcomes, not environments

In 2026, advertisers are entering the market with fewer experimental dollars and clearer performance mandates. According to EMarketer data, U.S. media spend is projected to grow from $622B in 2025 to more than $838B by 2028. But that growth is flowing disproportionately to channels and partners that can demonstrate impact.

At the same time, open web display advertising continues to lose ground. MediaRadar data shows open web display spend flattening and declining year-over-year through 2024 and 2025, as budgets move toward higher-impact video and direct, curated buys.

Buyers are now planning backward from outcomes (awareness lift, site traffic, and performance signals). They are also asking sellers to prove how inventory, formats, and creative directly contribute to those goals.

• Budgets are consolidating with fewer partners as buyers look to simplify execution and measurement. 
• Packages need to align to use cases (launches, seasonal moments, competitive conquesting, etc.) rather than impressions alone. 
• Performance benchmarks and historical proof points are increasingly required in RFPs.

Publishers that can clearly connect their offerings to outcomes, and support that story with data, are earning larger, more strategic commitments.

2. Creative is becoming the primary lever for differentiation

As addressability narrows, creative has emerged as the primary driver of performance. There’s a clear shift in where attention, and budgets, are going. Programmatic video ad spend alone is expected to approach $150B by 2027, according to EMarketer data, and CTV is no longer treated as  an incremental reach-only channel.

Across industries, CTV ad spend is growing aggressively. For example, according to EMarketer and MediaRadar data, automotive CTV spend is projected to grow from $3.1B in 2025 to $5.2B by 2028, while CPG is expected to nearly double from $2.6B to $4.9B over the same period. 

These gains are being driven not just by audience reach, but by creative formats that move people. Simply put, message-level performance is shaping buying decisions. Celebrity-led advertising increased 42% year-over-year, rising from 9.8% of total ad spend in 2024 to 13.9% in 2025 — a signal that advertisers are leaning into creative that builds trust and emotional connection.

The implications are clear:

• Creative effectiveness is increasingly used as a proxy for media effectiveness.
• Category-level creative insights (tone, format, spokesperson strategy)  strengthen both upfront and scatter conversations. 
• High-impact and custom units perform best when informed by performance data, not intuition.

The most effective sellers in 2026 aren’t just selling space. They’re helping advertisers tell engaging stories and make smarter creative decisions before campaigns go live.

3. First-party data needs to be activated, not just collected

Nearly every publisher has invested in first-party data, but one point is clear: possession is no longer enough. Activation is what buyers value.

As programmatic buying shifts away from the open exchange, control is consolidating. Today, according to data from ANA via Marketing Drive, 59% of programmatic ad spend flows through private marketplaces versus 41% through the open marketplace. And, when CTV is included, that split widens to 66% private versus 34% open.

At the same time, discovery behavior is changing. According to EMarketer, AI-driven search is projected to grow from just 1% of total search ad spend today to 13.6% by 2029, compressing the path from intent to action and reducing the role of the traditional click altogether. In this environment, vague audience claims quickly lose credibility.

• Audience segments must be clearly defined, transparent, and tied to real outcomes.
• First-party data should support planning, creative strategy, and optimization, not live in isolation. 
• Context, creative, and data must work together to drive measurable performance.

Publishers that can explain how their data enhances effectiveness—rather than simply replacing targeting—will stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

What media sellers need to do now

The opportunity in 2026 is real, but so is the competition. To protect and grow share, media sellers should focus on three priorities:

• Lead with outcomes, supported by proof
• Use creative intelligence to guide advertiser strategy
• Turn first-party data into a clear, buyer-friendly value story

2026 is not about chasing the next new thing. It’s about execution. Media sellers who adapt their approach now won’t just keep pace with buyers, they’ll help define how the market moves next.

MediaRadar will continue exploring these shifts in our State of the Industry webinar series. Our next session, Video Everywhere—Winning in the New Era of CTV, takes place on March 19. It will dive deeper into how streaming, CTV, and digital video are converging — and what that means for media sellers navigating a rapidly evolving video landscape.

About the author

Fan Shi Blackwell is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at MediaRadar, where she focuses on building high-impact alliances across AdTech, programmatic, retail media, data, and e-commerce. With over 15 years of experience, she helps platforms, brands, and agencies turn marketing intelligence into measurable growth, profitability, and ROI through omni-channel strategy, data-driven decisioning, and performance optimization.

The post Media sellers face a performance reset in 2026 appeared first on Digital Content Next.

AI inevitably looms large in this mix in 2026, particularly in terms of using these technologies to deliver on promised efficiencies and product innovation. But this isn’t the only issue keeping leaders up at night. Just as important, if not more so, are questions of maintaining and growing audiences, as well as the continued need for revenue diversification.

These issues play out against a backdrop where attracting and retaining attention remains a challenge. In an era of mass news avoidance, that a key consideration for news outlets. However, in an era where we have access to more entertainment sources than ever before, responding to the attention economy is a driver for every media company.

In terms of AI, embracing this technology strategically (without it eating publishers’ lunch) remains a tightrope that has to be walked. And the need for diversified revenue models is more important than ever as referral traffic from major platforms continues to decline.

As the latest predictions from Nieman Lab, Reuters Institute, and Deloitte demonstrate, the industry is grappling with these three interconnected factors. However, there are also opportunities to plot a successful way forward.

1. Tactics for audience growth and retention

Writing at the end of last year, Burt Herman the principal and co-founder of Hacks/Hackers outlined the risks of “People Zero,” noting the growing challenge of getting audiences to come directly to publisher content in the AI age.

As Herman notes, this challenge “pushes journalism to reconsider what we offer as our product.” That’s a sentiment applicable to all media outlets, and one which reinforces the need for publishers to demonstrate value (in terms of quality and cost), as well as distinctiveness, if they are to attract and retain consumers.

Herman argues that “journalism’s future is utility,” pointing to tools and approaches that can help publishers stand out. These include providing unique datasets that audiences can use to inform their lives, creating spaces that foster connection with others, developing immersive media experiences, and strengthening direct publisher-to-consumer communication.

This last point has become especially important as referral traffic from search and social platforms continues to decline. The trend is being further accelerated by AI summaries and chatbots, alongside the continued deprioritization of news on many platforms. As a result, publishers face growing pressure to reduce their reliance on platform-dependent distribution and focus instead on building direct relationships with audiences.

As Debra Aho Williamson put it in an article for The Rebooting, “To thrive, publishers must shift from renting audiences on external platforms to owning relationships through newsletters, direct engagement and differentiated content.”

For many publishers, newsletters are central to this approach. They provide a direct line to audiences, generate valuable first-party data, and offer clear advertising and sponsorship opportunities. The rise of personalized newsletters, along with a shift toward named newsletter hosts rather than anonymous corporate voices, has also made the format more appealing and more human.

Podcasts represent another important channel for deepening these relationships. Hearing the voice of a host creates an immediate sense of familiarity and connection. Like newsletters, podcasts are typically released on predictable schedules. Publishing at consistent times and delivering content directly to inboxes or podcast apps helps build habits, making engagement part of a listener’s daily or weekly routine and supporting retention over time.

By leaning into voice-led formats such as newsletters and podcasts, publishers can also tap into some of the dynamics that have fueled the creator economy. This sector thrives on perceptions of authenticity, personality, and direct connection. Recognizing this, organizations including The Washington Post and CBS are expanding the range of voices they feature, introducing new contributors and republishing material from partner organizations.

Rather than positioning the creator economy as competition (or a threat), partnering with trusted creators can be a way to bring new audiences into publisher ecosystems. This is particularly relevant as audiences increasingly follow individual voices they trust, often independent of institutional affiliation.

Publishers are also responding to these preferences through video podcasts, vertical short-form video, and more personality-led formats across platforms. A recent Reuters Institute survey found that three-quarters of publisher respondents say they will be encouraging their staff to behave more like creators this year. At the same time, Deloitte predicts that global ad revenues for podcasts and vodcasts will reach approximately $5 billion in 2026, representing close to 20 percent year-over-year growth.

Taken together, these efforts reflect a growing focus on aligning content formats, tone, and distribution with audience preferences. As we look at the big trends right now, we see media leaders doubling down on direct engagement, aiming to build stronger, more resilient audience relationships that are less dependent on external platforms.

2. AI: From experimentation to implementation

Alongside audience strategy, the second major priority for media companies is AI integration, specifically the shift from experimentation to practical, day-to-day implementation.

Deloitte’s 2026 TMT predictions describe this as a year defined by less exciting but essential work. This includes data hygiene, governance, and the challenge of scaling AI across organizations rather than launching isolated pilot projects. As Deloitte observes, “New foundational models, or even shiny new enterprise agentic applications, continue to impress,” they note, “but they will likely be more useful in the near term.” 

In practice, publishers are increasingly experimenting with AI-powered summaries, text-to-audio versions of articles, and translation tools that allow content to reach new audiences. These applications point to clear product and workflow opportunities, even as broader efficiency gains have yet to fully materialize.

At the same time, for all the rhetoric about the efficiencies that AI technologies will unlock, much of this potential across multiple industries has yet to be realized. Partly, this is due to the need to fact-check and correct AI outputs. More widely, as The Wall Street Journal observes there is also a disconnect between “how much time workers say the technology saves them on the job is vastly different from what executives report.”

Nevertheless, we can expect to see major investment in AI tools and technologies to continue, even if anticipated gains take longer to become reality than expected. According to a recent report from WAN-IFRA, nearly 93% of respondents to their annual World Press Trends survey identified AI and Automation as a top investment area for the coming year.

At the same time, publishers must grapple with a more fundamental shift. AI is increasingly becoming a primary route to information discovery for many users. Systems such as Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Claude are now intermediaries between audiences and content, raising new questions about visibility, attribution, and value.

As Nikita Roy, founder of Newsroom Robots Lab, incubated at the Harvard Innovation Labs, puts it, “ AI is becoming the new audience.” She argues that organizations will need to return to first principles and re-engineer themselves to meet this reality. That includes building teams focused on creating structured, living information that can surface effectively within AI-driven environments.

Licensing will be part of that mix, but these financial relationships are not necessarily lucrative, and often only the largest players get a seat at the table. All of this makes it incumbent that publishers don’t just optimize for being cited and summarized. They must also continue to build their own products and create reasons for audiences to engage directly with them, rather than third party tools and applications.

Without this, publishers risk becoming little more than content suppliers in an information ecosystem where others own the audience, data, and financial benefit of these behavior shifts. If they fail to do this, publishers will simply be creating a new form of platform dependency. To avoid this, it’s fundamental that media companies can demonstrate value, engagement, and impact on their own terms and across their own properties.

3. Revenue diversification remains central

Lastly, when it comes to broadening their revenue mix, media companies need to keep their foot on the gas.

Global advertising spend is expected to surpass a trillion dollars in 2026, but the percentage of that coming to traditional media companies continues to decline. Instead, the big tech companies, retail media players and influencers/creators ae among those who will benefit the most. The value of US creator economy, for example, is expected to exceed $20 billion in 2026, representing a CAGR of 16.2%, according to EMARKETER’s forecast.

All of this makes it essential for media companies to continue to look beyond advertising to ensure a firm financial footing. Subscriptions will play a role here. However, continued hikes in prices will test the patience, loyalty and wallets of even the most ardent consumers, especially as questions of affordability and the cost of living continue to loom large.

As I’ve previously argued, revenue streams such as live events, e-commerce and non-news content (such as games) are becoming progressively important.

Events continue to be the area that sparks the most interest, and perhaps has the most potential  for many media players. As summarized by Lineup, “events turn media brands into hosts. They deepen loyalty, open sponsorship opportunities, and extend the value of your content into real life.” “For media companies seeking to stay ahead of the curve, hosting, managing and monetizing events is no longer a nice add-on, “ they contend, “it’s a strategic imperative.”

By strengthening audience ties, generating new sponsor income, expanding geographic reach through hybrid and in-person formats, events can be a channel for growth, supporting strategies for audience growth, as well as efforts to move beyond traditional advertising and subscription models.

This is part of a wider trend identified in WAN-IFRA’s latest World Press Trends study. The report revealed that globally non-advertising and subscription revenues now accounts for over a quarter of publisher income. As a percentage, this is almost the same as companies make from digital!

Alongside events, companies are further expanding into areas such as B2B services, grants and philanthropy, and affiliate relationships, as well as more tried and trusted (if potentially volatile) activities such as content licensing and paid partnerships with platforms.

Successful publishers are maintaining their focus on these types of revenue generators, embracing strategies that align with their audience needs and their own content propositions.

Condé Nast, for example, help to generate $600 million in product sales for their partners in 2024. This represented a fivefold increase over four years, enabling the company to grow its affiliate revenues from brands which have editorial authority and strong ties with audiences.

And just as the year ahead is about the less glamorous side of AI, the same can be said in the revenue space. Kimberly Miller, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Payway, points out the importance of investing in payment systems and payment recovery. “Every declined or expired card represents more than a lost transaction,” she told Editor & Publisher. “Sometimes it is also a lost reader relationship. In 2026, publishers that prioritize payment data integrity and recovery automation will quietly strengthen their revenue foundation.”

The bottom line: Differentiating success from survival

Collectively, these three interlocking challenges will be at the heart of publisher success (or failure) in the year ahead.

The audience crisis is real and accelerating, making it a strategic imperative that media players tackle questions of news avoidance, declining referral traffic and identify how they can best grab – and retain – audience attention.

That means investing in direct relationships through newsletters, podcasts, video-first formats, and creator partnerships. It also requires a “barbell” strategy that prioritizes either snackable social content or deep, high-value consumption.

In terms of AI, the year ahead will see a maturing of efforts designed to improve workflows and products. Publishers will need to decide not only how AI supports their workflows and offerings, but also how their content is surfaced, summarized, or withheld in AI-driven environments. These choices will shape visibility, value, and control in ways that extend well beyond technology teams.

Lastly, building and nurturing multiple revenue lines while investing in retention, habit-forming products, and experiences that audiences actually want, remains key.

For media companies in the year ahead, a focus on deepening audience relationships, diversifying revenues, demonstrating value and deploying AI strategically and realistically, will be the key to success. These areas are firmly interwoven, and increasingly contingent on one another. In 2026, none of these media trends works in isolation. Media companies who understand this, and plan accordingly, will be best positioned to navigate whatever the next 12 months throws at us.

The post How to tackle the three tensions defining media in 2026 appeared first on Digital Content Next.

However, the longstanding trade-off between ad density and revenue is shifting as improved buyer-side signals enable the market to distinguish—and reward—higher-performing publisher environments. As outcome-based buying becomes more prevalent, programmatic markets are getting better at recognizing performance and pricing publisher quality accordingly. 

For years, more ads often meant more money, but also slower page load times, diminished user experience, and growing tension with other revenue drivers. Publishers understood the tradeoff, but lacked the tools to measure its long-term impact or determine whether the market would ever reward restraint rather than sheer volume.

Advertising only works well when it functions for all sides of the market:

• For readers, ads must not overwhelm or degrade the experience.
• For advertisers, ads must appear in trusted environments where they are seen and effective.
• For publishers, ads must generate predictable, sustainable revenue without eroding audience perceptions.

Aligning those incentives hasn’t been easy. 

New analysis suggests that this dynamic is finally beginning to change. As buyer-side signals improve and outcome-based buying becomes more prevalent, the market is increasingly able to distinguish low-performing, high-density environments from cleaner, higher-performing ones—and price them differently over time.

This is important for publishers making strategic decisions about their user experience, and ultimately, long-term business health. 

Why the market didn’t reward quality before

For much of programmatic’s evolution, ad buyers lacked the inputs needed to consistently pay more for better environments.

Signals tied to outcomes were limited, and viewability and brand safety focused on avoiding the worst placements rather than rewarding the best ones. Attention and engagement metrics were either unavailable or unevenly applied.

Publishers faced their own constraints. Reducing ad density almost always produced short-term revenue declines, reinforcing a bias toward volume even when long-term performance might improve.

The result was widespread commoditization.

What long-term testing reveals

At Raptive, we’ve spent the past year evaluating ad density changes using longer-term, site-level cohort testing. With this testing, a different pattern emerges. You can observe how pricing evolves once you have sufficient performance data. The critical variable is time. Short-term tests often obscure these effects; only extended observation allows pricing signals to fully adjust.

Across multiple publisher cohorts, cleaner pages demonstrate notable CPM resilience. These effects appear across both mobile and desktop environments. The key takeaway is not that fewer ads automatically mean more revenue in the short term.  It is that the market is increasingly able to recognize environments where ads are more likely to perform, and then price those impressions accordingly.

The shift in the broader ad market

Several broader programmatic advertising market developments help explain why this is happening now:

1. Buyer-side data has improved. 
2. Attention and engagement signals are more widely integrated into buying decisions.
3. Outcome-based buying models continue to gain traction.

Together, these changes reduce noise in the system and increase the market’s confidence in performance signals tied to cleaner environments. Also, cleaner pages reduce noise. They improve load times. They increase the likelihood that ads are seen and engaged with. All of these signals compound, and a healthier feedback loop begins to form between publishers and buyers.

This evolution reframes how ad density should be evaluated. Density is no longer just a tactical response to increasing revenue. It is a strategic decision that influences how the market perceives and values inventory over time.

Publishers also train the market through their choices. High-density environments teach buyers to expect commoditized performance, and high-quality environments teach buyers to bid accordingly.

Cleaner publisher ad layouts are the future

We’re just beginning to see what the future could look like, and a long way off from this becoming the standard. But the good news is that programmatic markets are slowly moving beyond pure scale economics. Page experience and outcomes are finally becoming meaningful inputs into pricing decisions.

For premium publishers, this creates an opportunity to reclaim value lost during years of commoditization, but only through deliberate, strategic choices. Cleaner environments are not just a user-experience improvement; they actively shape how the market learns to value inventory.

Programmatic markets are not automatically fair, but they are increasingly teachable. Publishers that prioritize performance-oriented environments train buyers to recognize—and bid for—quality. For an industry that has long argued quality matters, the market is finally beginning to respond.

The post From scale to signal: Why cleaner publisher environments gain value appeared first on Digital Content Next.

That calculation no longer balances.

As the industry approaches 2026, the era of accepting opaque infrastructure has ended. For premium publishers, the definition of a modern media stack is shifting from broad connectivity to radical directness. Revenue durability now depends on ruthlessly rationalizing the supply path. Control, data, and economics must remain with the content creators.

The high cost of intermediary bloat

The systemic critique of the current programmatic environment is well-documented, yet the inefficiencies persist. Despite years of discourse regarding Supply Path Optimization (SPO), the chain remains cluttered with intermediaries. Many of these vendors function primarily through arbitrage rather than value addition.

For media executives, the issue extends beyond fees. It centers on the misalignment of incentives. When a supply chain involves multiple hops, reselling, and bid duplication, technology partners often optimize for their own volume and take rates. They rarely prioritize the publisher’s yield or the advertiser’s working media.

This complexity acts as a shield. It obscures where value leaks and complicates the auditing of revenue streams. In 2026, transparency serves as an architectural requirement rather than a sales talking point. If a publisher cannot trace a dollar from the DSP to their bank account without losing 30 to 50 percent to friction, the infrastructure has failed.

Redefining modern media infrastructure

Publishers must demand directness from the ad supply chain in the coming year. Moving toward a direct-to-publisher model represents a strategic reclamation of economic power rather than a simple technical adjustment. A direct infrastructure removes the cost of unnecessary middlemen. This ensures a higher percentage of advertiser spend reaches working media. When the path clears, yield increases naturally because the friction costs disappear.

Directness also maps to control. When publishers rely heavily on third-party legacy tech stacks, they become beholden to product roadmaps that do not prioritize their specific needs. By demanding infrastructure that allows for direct connections, media executives regain crucial operational capabilities.

• Dictating terms. Executives can structure distinct commercial agreements that remain undiluted by third-party revenue shares. This clarity allows for more accurate forecasting and P&L management.
• Protecting data. Direct paths limit the leakage of first-party data signals to unauthorized resellers. This security becomes paramount as privacy regulations tighten globally.
• Accelerating innovation. Publishers can deploy new ad formats or privacy-preserving technologies immediately. They no longer need to wait for a massive intermediary to update legacy code.

The sustainability and efficiency imperative

A secondary argument for direct infrastructure has emerged as a critical business driver: Sustainability. The digital advertising industry generates a massive carbon footprint. This is driven largely by the sheer computing power required to process billions of bid requests, many of which are duplicative. In a convoluted supply chain, a single impression opportunity might generate dozens of calls to different servers. This consumes energy at every hop, only to result in a single ad serving.

This is the very definition of waste.

Brands and agencies now face pressure to report on Scope 3 emissions. Consequently, they are scrutinizing the carbon cost of their media buys. A direct connection offers an inherently greener alternative. It reduces Hello the computational load significantly by eliminating reselling and secondary auctions.

For the publisher, this presents a dual advantage. A streamlined, direct supply chain generates higher profitability by capturing more working media. Simultaneously, it appeals to the growing number of eco-conscious buy-side partners. Efficiency serves as both a responsibility and a competitive differentiator.

The cooperative path forward

The shift away from opaque intermediaries toward transparent, direct connections is already underway. Industry bodies and specialized cooperatives are re-platforming to prioritize these direct specifications. However, the technology only functions as well as the demand for it.

Media executives must stop viewing the tech tax as a fixed cost of doing business. It is a solvable inefficiency. The goal for 2026 involves building a supply chain where value derives from the quality of the audience and the content. It should not depend on the complexity of the pipe used to reach them.

We must close the gap between the advertiser’s dollar and the publisher’s pocket. The technology to do so exists. The imperative now relies on the will to implement it.

The post The high cost of ad tech friction: Why publishers must go direct appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Together, these forces are changing what competitive advantage looks like. No longer seeking scale for its own sake, publishers are focused on proof, predictability, and performance.  

To gain a high-level view of the industry, DCN gathered perspectives from companies that work with publishers every day across measurement, monetization, infrastructure, workflow, and operations. Their proximity to daily decision-making across media companies of all sizes and types provides insight into the competencies publishers are actively strengthening as they adapt to discovery volatility, evolving advertiser expectations, and the operational realities of AI.

Several capabilities stand out as especially relevant for publishing priorities in 2026.

Authenticated audiences anchor revenue growth

The media industry’s shift from quantity to quality has accelerated. Advertisers are increasingly focused on confidence in who they are reaching, how audiences engage, and what outcomes media delivers.

Rich Murphy, CEO, president, and managing director of Alliance for Audited Media, points out that buying continues to move away from pageviews and impressions toward outcomes. In that environment, independent, third-party verification is foundational. Publishers able to demonstrate authenticated reach and engagement across channels are better aligned with how advertising investment decisions are being made this year.

This change is reshaping how growth is defined. Audience scale still matters, but only when it is identifiable, engaged, and repeatable. Audiences must be respected as business assets rather than traffic streams—assets that need to be cultivated, measured, and maintained over time.

That redefinition is already influencing advertiser behavior. Jack Marshall, head of news at DoubleVerify, points to engagement data showing that trusted news environments outperform non-news content. For advertisers prioritizing attention and impact, proof and performance are increasingly intertwined.

Cross-platform adaptation reflects audience discovery

As search and social referrals become less reliable, publishers are rethinking how content travels and how value is captured beyond owned-and-operated environments.

John Nardone, CEO of JWX, says publishers are strengthening their ability to adapt content across platforms rather than rely on a destination-first model. With referral dependency declining, publishers can no longer wait for audiences to arrive. Instead, they need systems that allow high-integrity journalism to meet audiences in the formats each platform favors—whether vertical video, audio, or short-form social expressions—while still reinforcing the core brand.

That shift turns content operations into an adaptive engine. The goal is not simply wider distribution, but more relevant, context-aware presentation of journalism across platforms. This enables audiences to experience content in ways that feel native to where and how they are engaging.

From the demand side, Sean Dean, vice president of media owner development at Criteo, notes that clearer signals around context and engagement make it easier for adapted content to be understood, valued, and discovered as it moves across platforms.

And from an audience perspective, Naomi Owusu, CEO and co-founder of Tickaroo, emphasizes that relevance is built through formats that invite participation and transparency. When audiences feel content is timely, understandable, and connected to their needs, cross-platform presence reinforces trust and habitual return behavior rather than fragmenting it.

In 2026, brand presence across platforms is increasingly tied to audience loyalty and repeat engagement, not just reach.

Modern media infrastructure is about signal quality and orchestration

In 2026, modern media infrastructure is less about adding tools and more about connecting systems that have historically been siloed.

From the demand side, infrastructure quality shows up as signal quality. Dean at Criteo says accurate, complete bidstream and bid-response data allow buyers to understand context, pricing, and performance with greater clarity. When those fundamentals are in place, innovation and premium demand tend to follow.

In premium video and streaming environments, infrastructure also needs to support consistency and accountability across screens. Nicolas Mignot, vice president of publisher sales and strategy at FreeWheel, emphasizes that modern infrastructure increasingly connects ad exposure to business outcomes such as sales and conversions. As advertisers expect video to behave more like digital channels, infrastructure becomes a growth enabler rather than background plumbing.

From the content side, JWX’s Nardone describes modern infrastructure as an orchestration layer, which collapses the divide between the newsroom and the ad tech stack. When a single piece of content can be automatically optimized for reach, engagement, and yield across platforms, publishers are better positioned to monetize attention wherever it occurs.

Engagement becomes the key to unlock monetization

As reach fragments and acquisition costs rise, sustainable monetization in 2026 depends less on volume and more on depth of engagement. It’s also critical to understand how clearly that engagement translates into advertiser value.

Ginny Hunter, vice president of publisher client development at DoubleVerify, says one persistent inefficiency is treating performance, media quality, and revenue as separate conversations. Publishers that unify these signals can proactively package and price premium opportunities around advertiser-favored KPIs, shortening the path to investment and strengthening trust.

In video environments, engagement is also reshaping how inventory is valued. Nicolas Mignot, vice president of publisher sales and strategy at FreeWheel, notes that advertisers increasingly look beyond content metadata to signals such as attention and ad interaction. These indicators help distinguish passive viewing from moments when ads are more likely to resonate and perform.

This year, monetization strategies that treat engagement as a secondary outcome face growing pressure. Approaches that design for engagement as a core input to pricing, packaging, and measurement are proving more resilient.

Trust and inclusion support long-term audience value

In a market saturated with automated and commoditized content, differentiation increasingly hinges on whether publishers can deliver journalism that audiences perceive as credible, relevant, and trustworthy.

Tickaroo’s Owusu believes that inclusive, audience-first journalism is closely tied to trust. Audiences no longer grant publishers the benefit of the doubt; they want to see their communities and lived experiences reflected authentically in coverage. That requires more than hiring practices. It depends on editorial, technical, and product systems that allow a broader range of voices to shape storytelling.

Trust also depends on accountability beyond the newsroom. Marshall from DoubleVerify points to engagement data showing that trusted news environments consistently outperform other content categories, reinforcing that credibility is not just a values issue—it is measurable and meaningful for advertisers. When trust is supported by transparent signals and outcomes, it becomes a durable source of audience and revenue value.

Owusu emphasizes that transparency is of particular importance as publishers adopt new tools. In the context of AI, audiences want clarity about what is human-led, what is assisted, and where accountability sits. Trust, once lost, is difficult to regain. And in 2026, it is increasingly visible in retention, engagement, and willingness to pay.

AI becomes operational infrastructure, with limits

This year, AI has moved beyond the experimental phase for many publishers. As media companies increasingly work with AI, it has started to function as infrastructure, shaping how inventory is forecast, priced, packaged, and sold.

Unni Kurup, director of client consulting and strategy at Theorem, describes AI’s real impact as emerging in commercial and operational decision systems—forecasting demand, optimizing yield, planning inventory, and coordinating decisions across teams. In volatile markets, AI can be used to forecast demand more accurately and align decisions across sales, pricing, and operations, reducing costly missteps.

At the same time, leaders are clear that not every application is appropriate. Murphy from Alliance for Audited Media emphasizes that, as AI becomes more deeply embedded in media operations, strong governance is essential. Without transparency, human oversight, and clear data-privacy protections, AI can introduce bias and opacity in the push for efficiency.

In 2026, effective AI adoption is less about speed and more about judgment: applying automation where it sharpens decisions and operational clarity, and restraint where trust and accountability are at stake.

Looking ahead: partnerships, execution, and what matters now

As publishers navigate 2026, decision-making has become more deliberate. An environment defined by uncertainty has sharpened the consequences of choices about audiences, investments, and partnerships. That execution depends not just on internal capabilities, but on the partners publishers choose to work with and the standards those relationships reinforce.

From a business perspective, performance, flexibility, and transparency have become baseline expectations. Tina Pautz, chief business officer at Raptive, says publishers have less tolerance for partners who underdeliver or fail to evolve alongside changing business models. Sustainable growth depends on alignment, clarity around tradeoffs, and a shared focus on long-term outcomes rather than short-term gains.

Supply-chain integrity is also receiving greater scrutiny this year. Bill Wheaton, CEO and co-founder of Symitri, believes that complexity and opacity (particularly the spread The of MFA inventory) are diluting value for both publishers and advertisers. Direct connectivity, clearer supply paths, and reduced waste are increasingly part of how publishers demonstrate accountability and rebuild confidence in the digital marketplace.

Taken together, these perspectives point to a broader shift. Publishing partnerships and priorities in 2026 are less about maximizing scale at any cost and more about reducing uncertainty, protecting trust, and enabling consistent performance over time.

The publishers in the strongest position this year aren’t trying to do everything. There’s less appetite for new-for-new’s-sake, and more focus on capabilities that actually move the business forward. That means understanding and authenticating audiences, adapting content strategy to the new rules of discovery, improving signal quality, and tying monetization more directly to engagement.

The post Trends shaping publishing priorities in 2026 appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Live streaming is also propelling CTV forward. With streaming platforms placing greater emphasis on live content – and the Winter Olympics and men’s football World Cup due to take place in 2026 – CTV is primed for sustained momentum. But what are the trends that are powering the current CTV boom, and how can stakeholders take full advantage of its success?  

Streaming’s popularity is fueling CTV’s growth 

The popularity of streaming services is a key factor behind the growth of the CTV opportunity. According to Nielsen data, the first half of 2025 saw streaming’s highest share of digital and TV viewership in the US at 46%. Over the same period, premium video ad view growth on streaming platforms across the US and Europe combined was up 27% year-on-year, the 1H Video Marketplace Report from FreeWheel shows.   

And connected TV devices are where the vast majority of streaming ads are being seen. In the US, 85% of streaming ad views are on CTV, compared to 9% on mobile or 3.5% on desktop. In Europe, where STB VOD is more common – particularly with France’s large IPTV sector – CTV still leads the way, accounting for 48% of ad views, compared to 21% on mobile or STB VOD. Overall, the number of ad views in 2025 on CTV devices grew significantly year-over-year (YOY), rising by 8% in the US and 31% in Europe.  

It’s clear that by offering audiences a high-quality viewing experience and a diverse range of content through streaming platforms, CTV has firmly established itself as the primary device for ad consumption in the premium video category. Media owners that want to further build on their streaming offering should make CTV a strategic priority. 

CTV boosts inventory value 

For streaming platforms, CTV offers some distinct advantages not least a large screen experience providing a highly immersive environment for advertising. But its ability to boost inventory value is critically important in a crowded digital advertising space. This is realized at different levels.  

1. Audience insight: With viewers often needing to log in on their devices, streaming apps know where and who their audience is, and can utilize various consented data points to help advertisers refine their targeting, increasing the value of their inventory. 
2. Measurement: CTV gives buyers visibility into actual outcomes beyond impressions and reach, from engagement to brand lift and conversions; making it easier for content providers to ensure the campaign reaches the intended audience, which further boosts inventory appeal.  
3. Targeting: CTV’s robust content foundation enables smarter, privacy-safe contextual targeting. By aligning ad creative with the content viewers are already engaged in, CTV boosts relevance, resonance, and results. Research from our FreeWheel Viewer Experience Lab found that viewers report twice the engagement when ads are relevant, and brand recall significantly increases with contextual alignment. 

In particular, the benefits of contextual alignment can go further. By tagging keywords using a standardized taxonomy, such as the IAB Content Taxonomy, publishers can achieve scalability and simplified ad execution. When combined with programmatic, this approach can further transform contextual advertising into a seamless targeting solution, noticeably increasing content’s value for advertisers. 

Programmatic opens up premium inventory to new advertisers 

An increasingly big part of the appeal of CTV for advertisers is the ability to deliver ads programmatically to streaming viewers. The Video Marketplace Report shows that there has been a major rise in programmatic ad views, growing 44% YOY in Europe and by 29% YOY in the US. Overall, programmatic now represents 30% of ad delivery in the premium video ecosystem in the US, while in Europe it stands at 19%.  

The significance of programmatic’s expanding influence in streaming is that it is opening up premium video to a new cohort of advertisers, including SMEs. While in the past, TV advertising was seen largely as a way to build brand awareness (and required big budgets) today brands looking to drive performance-based outcomes are increasingly utilizing programmatic delivery to reach specific CTV audiences.  

Data shows a 14% YOY rise in the number of unique advertisers leveraging automated delivery; and they are reaping the rewards, with new-to-programmatic advertisers achieving 29% more ad views than those who entered the market in the first half of 2024. This highlights a compelling reason for publishers to tap into this increased demand for programmatic; in turn, they can increase their pool of advertisers, lessening the risk of ad fatigue for audiences from repetitive ads and improving the viewing experience.   

The importance of live environments 

Programmatic is also transforming ad delivery for live content. In the US, the majority (56%) of ad views happen in live environments due to the popularity of live sports coverage and FAST (Free, Ad-supported Streaming TV) channels. In Europe, more than three-quarters (76%) of premium video ad views are in VOD content, though growing distribution between direct-to-consumer (DTC) and FAST channels has seen the share of live environment ad views grow. Particularly in the UK, FAST is rapidly growing as audiences increasingly enjoy the familiar, ‘live’ experience of linear TV through digital devices.  

With tentpole live events on the agenda in 2026, including the men’s football World Cup, the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl and more, there’s a major opportunity for publishers to tap into live programming and continue to open up access to their inventory and audiences through programmatic. 

Now, to truly take advantage of the opportunities that CTV brings, streamers need to ensure the buying process is as simple as possible. Traditionally, buying for TV has been a complex undertaking. For buyers used to digital channels such as social and display, straightforward and efficient access to addressable media is key. In turn, this will increase efficiency for publishers.  

With advertisers, particularly new-to-programmatic ones, seeing results from their spend in this area, platforms must focus on unlocking more content in this way to diversify their strategies and put themselves at the forefront of innovation in CTV. While publishers’ investments in monetization and technology are paying off, there’s still plenty of room to further extend automated delivery across VOD and live inventories. And with a wider pool of advertisers and support for diversified and innovative ad formats, the viewing experience can be greatly enhanced too.  

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