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.  

The post Programmatic momentum is widening CTV revenue potential appeared first on Digital Content Next.

However, despite the undisputed appeal for audiences, it presents media businesses with a conundrum: produce video content cheaply to maximize ROI, or invest in quality video leveraging the brand, with the risk of a lower return. So how do media businesses choose which topics or subjects are right to build a video strategy around. And when do revenue opportunities like sponsors enter into those discussions?

Commercial viability

For most outlets, video has to pay its way. Documentary-style video is expensive to produce. Therefore, it is often simply not worth the investment for primarily text-based commodity news publishers. 

To offset that issue (i.e., the high cost of video production and the risk of spending money on content that doesn’t pay off), The Independent created Independent TV with a clear rule: No video series gets made unless it already has a sponsor or advertiser committed to funding it.

This commissioning bottleneck of sorts serves as a test of whether the subject was of worth to a potential sponsor in video form. The approach does present potential frustration lin that that advertising priorities dictate what gets made, meaning creative or editorially strong concepts could stall if they didn’t appeal to sponsors. However, this approach prevented the paper from spending a significant amount of money on a video project that might never have been commercially viable.

A similar approach is taken by The Sun, which has seen its video share of digital revenue increased to 18% in the latest reported results. Jon Lloyd, Director of Video for the newspaper says that, “Making video in isolation doesn’t make sense at The Sun; when commissioning Sun Originals the commercial considerations are right at the beginning. That was the genesis for Sun Originals: high quality shows which advertisers like to sponsor. 

“It must always be editorially driven and work for our audiences. But editorial teams will work with the commercial teams in order to launch the show and build the commercial aspect in, tailoring it to the client. It can’t just be their name on the show anymore.”

As a result of that strategy The Sun is working with clients who “have never used us in a digital capacity before, like M&S and Card Factory”. Recognizing the synergy between its consumer-focused news approach and the commercial opportunity, it has been focused on two specific content verticals for Originals commissioning: sports and Fabulous, which encompasses women’s fashion, beauty and lifestyle.

At the same time, commercial considerations do not factor into discussions around video creation for news organizations whose commercial proposition is more supporter-based.

The Guardian confirms that they do not create videos with sponsors in mind. Those discussions are not part of the overall decision about when and where to launch a video series. 

Nevertheless, the company is not ignoring the audience growth opportunities of digital video  and is set to invest further in using it for storytelling. As its editor-in-chief recently told Press Gazette, “I mean, at the moment, [when] we get a big story, it usually will have a podcast attached for example. It will usually have a video explainer attached. It will usually have all sorts of stuff attached already, but I think it’s the next stage of that.”

Cost vs return

Some major titles are increasingly looking to video as an audience growth opportunity first. The idea is that audiences attracted by video are likely to convert, even if that form of content does not exactly match the majority of the paper’s content.

Juliet Riddell is head of new formats at the Financial Times, which has been experimenting with news-led short films. Its latest, ‘Recall Me Maybe’, is a short fictional film that examines dementia, AI, and the unreliability of memory and artificial intelligence. That’s quite the departure for the title. However, its position in front of the paywall speaks to its belief that video of this sort is worth investing in as an audience acquisition tool.

Speaking to Media Voices, Riddell explained: “All the films are trying to connect an audience with something that’s happening now and that we feel we need to communicate now.”  

We also see a number of publications investing in digital video to diversify the audiences that are exposed to the brand, albeit with a far lower cost base. That is particularly true for those media businesses looking to convert more audiences by creating more touchpoints.

Chris Stone is executive producer of podcasts and video at the New Statesman. He explains: “We’re already producing podcasts, so adding video to that production workflow doubles up on the content that we’re making, so we’re getting more out of a single record. That video then extends our audience reach on YouTube, [and] also on social platforms. And the purpose of that is to grow the top of our funnel.”

He also notes that the ROI of a piece of content – in any form – is based on how widely it can be repurposed: “If I was starting something from scratch, I wouldn’t start with original video. I would start with multimedia content that can be repurposed on lots of different platforms.”

Beyond digital video

Given the scale of investment in video podcasts over the past few years – with a recently announced collaboration between Spotify and Netflix acting as the cherry on top – it is unsurprising that newsbrands recognize the value of delivering its star audio content in another broadly-accessible format. Vox, for instance, has just poached the NYT’s Astead Herndon, appointing him as a host and editorial director with a remit to launch and lead a new multiplatform video podcast. 

This approach bears fruit for publishers that have been investing in multimedia content for years: the podcasts have already proven to be commercially successful in audio, and the additional costs of filming and editing them are relatively small. In commissioning these relatively small, these media businesses take advantage of advertisers’ hunger for video content, and video’s ability to open up new audiences. 

Whether it is a high-quality audience play like that of the Financial Times, or the more commercial-led commissioning approach, video is increasingly seen as a must-have for news and magazine brands. Finding the sweet spot between commercial growth and audience development is paramount, but dependent on the wider commercial strategy of the title.

The post Publishers reveal their ROI equation for digital video appeared first on Digital Content Next.

This matters for media owners. Confusion around definitions and measurement can distort investment decisions, complicate yield strategies, and cloud how some publishers position their ad inventory in a rapidly evolving market. Understanding where programmatic fits, and where it doesn’t, is essential for anyone making decisions about CTV monetization.

The latest FreeWheel Video Marketplace Report (VMR) found that over 70% of streaming ad views are still delivered directly, outside of programmatic channels. At the same time, some industry forecasts suggest that over 80% of CTV spend is already programmatic. The gap between these figures highlights a deeper problem: the industry still lacks a shared way of defining and measuring programmatic in CTV.

Why the disconnect exists

Programmatic, at its simplest, is about automation. Yet in everyday use, the term has stretched so far that it now covers almost everything. This can include everything from open exchange bidding and private marketplaces to programmatic guaranteed deals, and even digitized versions of old-style insertion orders.

This broad application muddies the waters. For example, guaranteed CTV buys executed through programmatic channels may be classified as programmatic, even though they behave more like direct transactions. At the same time, some forecasts group together very different formats, such as in-stream, outstream, and social video. all under the CTV umbrella. The result is an inflated picture of programmatic’s footprint in premium CTV environments, which has resulted in a narrative that does not always reflect the actual transactions taking place.

For media owners, the problem isn’t just about definitions. It directly affects how buyers perceive value, how inventory is packaged, and how technology investments are prioritised. When “programmatic” can have four or five different meanings, publishers risk being evaluated against expectations that do not align with the real economics of their supply.

CTV is not display, and not linear

Part of the challenge is that CTV doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. It isn’t digital display, and it isn’t traditional TV. Instead, it combines TV living-room style viewing with digital-style automation.

That in-between status has consequences. Budgets often get split between TV and digital teams, leading to competing KPIs and conflicting expectations. Agencies with more established brand clients may prioritize guaranteed premium placements, while performance-led advertisers may lean towards real-time optimization. Both want automation, but they mean very different things when they use the word “programmatic.”

And then there are publisher realities. Premium inventory is finite. Direct deals remain the backbone when it comes to revenue and they allow tighter control over both supply and the viewing experience. Adding programmatic layers can introduce extra costs and unnecessary operational complexity. Not to mention ongoing issues with signal loss, fraud, lack of transparency, and inventory duplication which all make it harder to trust the open exchange. The idea of pushing all CTV into this model simply doesn’t reflect how premium video is bought and sold today.

The impact of language and alignment

A serious stumbling block for the industry is not the technology but the terminology. “programmatic” is being used to describe multiple, fundamentally different transaction models. Without clearer definitions, buyers and sellers risk building toward different futures. That leaves publishers in a difficult position. Do they double down on auction-based infrastructure, channel resources into tools that support direct guarantees, or try to straddle both? Without greater industry alignment, even the most carefully designed strategies can end up misfiring.

Buyers, too, grow wary when CTV is labelled as “programmatic” but still depends on direct negotiation. The result is a disconnect between expectation and reality. That, in turn, can hold back spend, despite CTV’s growing share of consumer attention. The confusion makes it harder for publishers to position their inventory correctly, and for buyers to evaluate its true value.

A more grounded future

A large share of premium CTV deals still happen within closed publisher ecosystems, using formats and configurations that escape conventional measurement tools. The real challenge isn’t just automation – with the risk of mirroring the display advertising model – it’s figuring out how to make programmatic truly fit CTV without reinforcing the fragmentation that already limits transparency and scale.

This will mean new models that reflect the economics of television, rather than forcing CTV into frameworks designed for other channels. It will also mean new tools that allow publishers to maintain supply control while offering buyers efficiency, better transparency, and the ability to tailor how they transact.

For media owners, progress requires pressing for greater alignment on terminology, more transparency in measurement, and continued investment in infrastructure that supports both efficiency and control. The challenges are real. But so are the opportunities.

The post Programmatic confusion is holding CTV back – can we fix it? appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Pundits from the broadcast and streaming industries were watching to see whether Amazon’s servers could handle the load (no problem) or whether its production standards were up to snuff (mostly).

The thing that caught my eye?

The QR-codes embedded alongside some traditional 30-second commercials. They explicitly invited viewers to whip out their phones and get early access to pre-holiday deals.

On Amazon, of course. Without ever taking an eye off the game.

In a single moment, Amazon crystallized the changes happening in advertising. They clearly demonstrated how first-party data owned by the tech platforms trumps the decades of experience of those of us in ad-supported media industries.

Buy direct

If those QR codes don’t make your blood run cold – well, they should. They’re one more sign of the need for those of us in traditional media to get serious about understanding our audience members as individuals and build direct relationships with them.

“Amazon’s real advantage is the depth of their first-party data,” says Bill Day, former senior vice president of the media research firm Magid Associates. “Prime Video accounts are directly tied into your Prime shopping account – a seamless integration from video exposure all the way to point of sale activation for endemic categories.”

In other words: Amazon knows who its audience members are (including credit-card numbers), where they live, what they buy. And they can connect them to a one-click purchase system.

Viewers are buying

Up next, Day says: Moving beyond endemic categories to local advertisers.

Amazon even has a fancy product name – “Interactive Video Ads” – a combination of QR codes, remote-control cues and other triggers to allow viewers to research and buy advertisers’ products without leaving the stream.

Last Thanksgiving, Amazon sold out its Black Friday game inventory four months ahead of the games. Even the Super Bowl rarely sells out that early.

Jay Marine, Amazon’s global head of sports, pitched the IVAs thusly as this year’s upfronts telling the Hollywood Reporter, “What we’re able to do, which excites advertisers, is deliver that live event scale, combined with the digital insights, combined with the Amazon shopping capabilities.” He pointed out that “a customer can go from watching the game to seeing an interactive advertisement that they can one-click ‘buy,’ and it’s showing up at their door in a couple hours. … I think we’re really positioned to deliver something that they can’t find in the rest of the market.”

(He doesn’t think. He knows. Can your media outlet do that? Didn’t think so.)

Individual knowledge, and data, is power

It’s not just Amazon, either. Every member of the so-called FAANG club knows more about individual audience members than we do. Meta understands consumers’ content consumption on Facebook and Instagram. They also have deep insight into audience members’ other browsing through their tracking pixel.

Alphabet can build a dossier based on a users Google Chrome browser history and YouTube viewing. Then they can deploy that data through the chunks of the programmatic ad ecosystem that it owns.

Apple has data from iPhones, its podcast platform and, increasingly, Apple TV+. Netflix knows what, when and where you watch video.

Meanwhile, too many of us talk in broad demographic strokes: “We’re No. 1 with women 25-54!”

Know your audience now

Regardless of our industry of origin – newspaper, broadcast, digital native – media companies are severely handicapped compared to the tech platforms, who have decades of first-party data and the expertise to use it effectively.

So what do we do?

Start with a serious commitment to gathering more of your own first-party data – from digital log files, from active outreach like quizzes and newsletters, through value exchanges with our audiences.

We should think, too, about how we might revisit and refresh ideas the industry considered, and rejected, decades ago.

One of my favorites, from Ye Olden Days of the ‘90s: The legacy newspaper industry formed a consortium, the New Century Network, to build collective tools in the then-emerging technologies of the internet. One of those proposed answers was universal registration system (what today we would call a single-sign on attached to a data lake) that would aggregate identity and usage data across the major news sites of the day.

My mentor Owen Youngman – then a senior executive at Tribune Co., later a professor of digital media at Northwestern – loudly advocated for that system (and probably crafted most of the pitch). It was basically laughed out of the room by companies who believed their classified-ads monopoly was divinely granted and immortal. So, why worry about first-party data?

Oops.

Within a decade, Google effectively built out that model. Using tools like Gmail to get users into their ecosystem, then adding in data from search and Chrome to build a dominant position in the programmatic ecosystem.

De-FAANGing the internet

There are glimmers of hope, though: The European Union is aggressively confronting the FAANG companies’ data practices; even the U.S. Justice Department is showing some renewed vigor toward anti-trust enforcement.

However, we can’t afford to complacently hope the regulators will solve all problems. Though we can hope those actions open a small window of opportunity. And it’s time to figure out if your media organization is building the data and skills it needs to make the most it.  

About the author

Tom Davidson is the Bellisario professor of practice in media innovation at Penn State University. He was a longtime reporter turned media executive and product developer at Tribune Co., PBS and Gannett.

The post Capitalize on first party data (like platforms do) appeared first on Digital Content Next.

Hub Entertainment Research’s latest Monetizing Video study report shows that price fatigue is real. Hub reports that viewers are increasingly tolerant of ads, especially when this option provides cost savings. They also find that consumers are choosing bundling offers that deliver the right mix of services and features, and – for the right services – subscribers will stay engaged and loyal. 

Consumers’ streaming spend nears the limit 

Hub’s data shows that the average consumer spends $83 per month on TV services. When researchers ask respondents about their ideal spending level, they say they feel comfortable spending up to about $86. Those who pay for three or more services already exceed their comfort zone and show little willingness to add more.  

This mirrors findings from Kantar’s Q2 2025 Entertainment on Demand report, which notes that U.S. streaming households are adding services at the slowest pace in three years, with growth driven primarily by price promotions or bundled offers. Similar trends appear in Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends study, where 47% of consumers say rising subscription costs have prompted them to cancel at least one service in the past six months. 

Bundles boost loyalty and reduce churn 

Hub’s research finds that new streaming bundles, such as Disney+ with Max or Hulu paired with Disney+, dramatically improve loyalty. Forty-two percent of users report they are much more likely to keep bundled services compared to subscribing to the same services separately. 

And, echoing what we found in DCN’s Subscription Tracking Report Q2 2025, the bundling trend is only increasing, especially in SVOD, digital news, magazines, and audio. Fifty-seven percent of subscribers now subscribe to at least one bundle. Bundles offer the perception of savings, simplify subscription management, and make it a more difficult consideration for viewers to churn.  

What viewers value most in streaming services 

To identify what drives value perception, Hub asked respondents to rank 16 different service attributes. “Low price” still tops the list, which is unsurprising. However, several shifts stand out from last year’s rankings: 

• Binge-watching full seasons is important, a feature Netflix helped popularize, and competitors now match. 

• Tolerance for ads is increasing. The importance of “no ads” as a top feature is declining as more viewers embrace free, ad-supported options like Tubi, Roku Channel, and YouTube. 

• Live sports are gaining ground in perceived value, reflecting the migration of sports rights from traditional TV to streamers. 

• Access to new theatrical movies is less critical than in previous years, with audiences leaning into original series instead. 

• Choice of plan tiers matters less than it did in 2022, as consumers gravitate toward simplified bundles. 

Ad-supported models gain ground 

Hub’s findings on ad tolerance dovetail with broader market data. An Ampere analysis reports that ad-supported tiers from Netflix and Disney+ outperform early expectations. These streaming services attract cost-sensitive subscribers while keeping them in their ecosystem.  

The takeaway for streaming services 

Industry implications:  

1. Keep pricing pressure in check, monitoring when consumers are at their limit. 

2. Lean into bundles that combine complementary services and simplify billing. 

3. Highlight evergreen value drivers like low price, unlimited access, and binge-worthy content. 

4. Expand ad-supported options that balance affordability with strong programming. 

For viewers, these trends promise more manageable bills and fewer subscription headaches. For streamers, bundling and ad-supported strategies offer a path to stable revenue without alienating customers already stretched thin. 

The streaming era may be maturing, but it is not slowing down. Price sensitivity is impacting consumer behavior. Therefore, value-added bundles and adaptable pricing models keep the relationship between viewer and streamer strong. 

The post Price fatigue fuels shift to bundled, Ad-backed streaming  appeared first on Digital Content Next.

I was in Cannes a few weeks ago to meet with clients and understand their priorities for the year ahead. We had just come out with a new report on the rise of streaming TV and shared some impressive top numbers with the industry. But, unsurprisingly, they wanted to know where growth was most likely to come from for them. 

It’s all well and good that auto, retail, finance, and pharma companies are spending over $1 billion on streaming platforms, they said, but which of those (and a dozen other) industries should they appeal to first? What types of advertisers within those industries might be most likely to respond? And for our media clients with both linear and streaming properties, how should they balance their media sales efforts between streaming and traditional TV?

To kick start the conversation, we decided to use our MediaRadar data to compare what brands have been spending on streaming platforms over the past few years to what they’ve been spending on linear TV. Mind you, not just linear TV but what most consider the bastion of linear TV: NFL broadcasts. The early results are remarkable and might affect how you think about your next media sales pitch.

Why NFL advertisers?

NFL games — and live sports in general — are tentpole events keeping traditional TV alive. However, streaming sports deals are multiplying and starting to lift media companies beyond major broadcasters too. Most football advertisers are in it for the reach and are well entrenched in linear TV advertising. However, many others are starting to recognize streaming as a natural extension of their traditional TV investments and a way to take their targeting capabilities to new heights. We thought that the intersection of those two advertising universes — streaming TV on one hand, and NFL games on linear TV on the other — would offer interesting contrasts and actionable insights for streaming media executives at a crucial time in their platforms’ development.

Another reason why this comparison is interesting is that advertisers spend about as much on NFL linear TV broadcasts ($8.5 billion during the 2024-25 season) as they do across all programs on streaming platforms ($7 billion during those same six months). So we’re not talking about two wildly different media channels with very unique advertising patterns and dynamics. It’s not streaming against the whole of linear TV and its $60 billion advertising market, for instance.

The overlap here is substantial. Figure 1 shows that between early August 2024 and early February 2025 (from the NFL pre-season to Super Bowl LIX), 23% of all the brands in our analysis advertised both on streaming platforms and during an NFL game on linear TV.

Football TV advertisers make clutch streaming partners

Of all the brands that advertised on streaming platforms in that six-month period, roughly half aired commercials during NFL games on linear TV as well. That’s been a fairly consistent picture over the years, as Figure 2 illustrates. The share of brands that advertise exclusively on linear TV has also been shrinking every year.

There’s still a long way to go to convince all of those brands to give streaming a chance. However, those that have made the jump already contribute the lion’s share of streaming TV revenues. Figure 3 shows that they represented 23% of all advertisers during the 2024-25 NFL season but accounted for 64% of all media spend in our analysis (and 87% of all streaming media spend).

Move up the chains

What type of brand should your media sales team pursue first? On average, beer & wine brands spent $1.2 million on all streaming platforms from Aug ‘24 to Feb ‘25, but they spent nearly $7.4 million during NFL games on linear TV. There’s plenty of room to grow. During that same period, telecom advertisers spent $2.7 million on streaming and $6.5 million on NFL TV broadcasts. Car manufacturers: $4.5 million and $11.7 million. Figure 4 shows the current gap in media spend for a typical brand in a number of sports-friendly industries.

In some sectors like restaurants, pharma, or insurance, streaming budgets are already on par with football budgets on linear TV, but they’re well behind in many other popular sectors. As more NFL games and other sports franchises transition to streaming, there’s a clear opportunity for media sales teams to bring those budgets closer together.

That doesn’t mean that streaming growth will always come at the expense of linear TV, of course. Between Aug ‘24 and Feb ‘25, Modelo tripled its streaming budget (from $4.4 million to $14.5 million) while also increasing its NFL linear TV budget by 20% (from $39.4 million to $47.2 million). But if you want to move the chains for your digital platform, you could do a lot worse than sports advertisers new to streaming and used to spending a lot on TV.

With the 2025-26 NFL season right around the corner, it’s time to study the field and draw up a winning playbook.

Note: MediaRadar’s streaming tracking expanded to include Netflix during H2 2022 and Disney+ during H1 2023. Insignificant variance to the number of streaming advertisers. Analysis not adjusted and reflective of current conditions.

The post Media companies: Here’s how to win big with brand partners appeared first on Digital Content Next.

The coming of age is not only symbolic. If you’ve been in the TV business for a while, like I have, you must have felt a wind of change over the past year with the rapid rise and adoption of ad-supported streaming. In meetings with advertisers, agencies and media companies leading up to the TV upfronts this year, I’ve been struck by how much streaming was now on everyone’s minds. Not as a distraction, or even an add-on, but as a central component in upfront negotiations. Streaming has matured into a strong, accountable media channel old enough to vote, get married, and bring its own fireworks to the negotiating table.

The numbers back it up. At MediaRadar, we’re monitoring ad spend and campaign creatives across all major media channels 24/7. We’re seeing three big signs of streaming’s coming of age: in how growth is spread across most platforms, not just one or two; in the number of industries embracing it; and in the diversity of companies signing on as advertisers.

We just released The 2025 MediaWatch® Streaming TV Report to quantify recent US trends and help advertisers make data-informed decisions about their streaming plans. Let me sum up what we found in those three key growth areas.

Streaming advertising spend is growing across virtually all platforms

It’s going to take some time to see this year’s upfront deals reflected in the data. However, a full-year analysis of streaming budgets over the past couple of years shows clearly what trendline we’re on. We measured ad revenue for nine top streaming platforms over that period and found that it increased 17% in 2024 to reach $12.9 billion.

Hulu led the way with close to $4.5 billion in ad revenue last year, nearly 3X as much as second-place Peacock TV — a clear reflection of its first-mover advantage and experience in ad sales. With a growth of 15% year-over-year, the OG ad-supported platform isn’t resting on its laurels either, but Peacock TV and Max are growing a clip faster (+19% and +20% respectively), while Tubi TV (+27%) and Paramount+ (+31%) are racing to close the gap.

As for Netflix, its comparatively low growth rate in 2024 (+8%) had more to do with the company’s cautious rollout so far. (It has more to lose by cannibalizing its considerable SVOD base) than its full potential as an advertising platform. But it’s turning up the heat in 2025: Despite a challenging economic outlook, Netflix is aiming to double its ad revenue this year.

A wide cross-section of industries are embracing streaming

Advertising on streaming platforms has gotten a lot more polished in the past 12 months. Targeting, creativity, and frequency control have improved dramatically — even though I’m seeing a lot of State Farm ads featuring Jason Bateman these days. But then again, I like Jason Bateman and I’m due for an insurance quote, so they might be onto something.

Speaking of insurance, finance & insurance firms topped the advertisers list on streaming TV last year with nearly $1.7 billion in media spend, followed by retail ($1.2 billion) and pharma ($1.1 billion). Among the leading industries, pharma, restaurants, professional services, and non-prescription remedies are all growing at a YOY rate of at least 20%. 

Can you guess what brand spent the most on streaming TV in 2024? That was Pfizer, with a budget of $140 million (+11%) and at a time the company was slashing costs. But even more telling is the fact that 29 brands spent more than $50 million on streaming last year, and they came from eight different industries. Streaming already represents 25% of total TV spend for auto manufacturers, 26% for retailers, and 31% for travel companies. It’s definitely not a niche channel anymore.

Streaming appeals to brands of all sizes

The third and final sign of maturity I want to point out is how much streaming has become an appealing option not just for big brands, but for smaller brands too.

While the number of big spenders—those with streaming budgets of at least $50 million—rose 16% last year, the total number of streaming advertisers, both large and small, jumped 29% to nearly 14,000 individual companies. The vast majority of these advertisers—81%—didn’t spend a dime on traditional TV.

To gauge the health of a new medium, we often focus on big news coming from big-name brands signing nine-figure deals. But it’s good to remember how crucial it can be to appeal to the long tail. While the leading brands are using streaming to expand their existing TV strategy, SMBs without the same marketing resources are taking advantage of self-service programmatic tools to experiment with TV advertising, many of them for the first time. Thanks to streaming, thousands of new advertisers are adding TV to their media mix.

Can streaming fend off tariffs and economic uncertainty?

Will streaming continue to grow at the same rate in 2025? Probably not. From consumer confidence to supply chains, pricing, and budgeting pressures, the current economic environment is too uncertain to invite confidence. In fact, most industry analysts have already revised their advertising estimates for the year. Jerome Powell’s remarks at the most recent Fed meeting — “I don’t think we can say which way this will shake out” — weren’t exactly encouraging.

But the fundamentals are finally in place for streaming: strong platforms, near-universal industry support, and high relevance to brands of all sizes. In fact, if advertisers are going to bet on one channel this year, they need to bet on streaming TV, says eMarketer. That’s because CPMs are coming down, streaming ads are successfully threading the needle between digital and traditional advertising, and yes, they’re measurable too.

All grown up indeed.

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Alongside technological advancements, CTV has established itself as the primary platform for premium viewing experiences, which has increased the popularity of live streaming for major events. This presents lucrative opportunities for media owners aiming to succeed in their ad-supported streaming ventures.

The latest FreeWheel research offers insights into these industry dynamics, exploring ad viewership trends across the premium video streaming ecosystem in European countries^* and the U.S. for the second half of 2024. In this article, we’ll dig deeper into the findings to uncover how these trends impact media stakeholders and how they can make the most of streaming’s developments.

Scaling live opportunities with CTV

The continued adoption of connected television is driving strong streaming viewership, including live programming. NBCUniversal’s exclusive U.S .coverage of the Paris Olympics, for instance, saw an 82% increase in viewership across multiscreen TV compared to the Tokyo 2020 Games, while Warner Bros. Discovery’s coverage in Europe grew by four times. The WNBA 2024 season was the most streamed in Paramount+ history. And Netflix’s exclusive live stream of the fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson in November 2024 attracted 108 million global viewers.

It’s easy to see why live programming is also transitioning to streaming platforms. Live streaming can meet modern-day viewers’ desire for immediacy, convenience, and universally engaging experiences. Live streaming also expands traditional TV’s engagement potential to audiences with diverse needs and unique preferences.

In many cases, these needs involve watching live programming from the comfort of their own homes and simultaneously being able to enjoy social experiences with family and friends. CTV devices now account for 77% of premium video ad views for live programming in Europe, demonstrating how CTV has evolved into a class of its own, capable of delivering both high-quality viewer experiences and results for content distributors.

Our data also shows that while still relatively small, programmatic transactions are growing strongly, with 37% in the US and 40% in Europe. This type of transaction will continue to expand as rising investment in programmatic is opening up new inventory opportunities.

Harnessing VOD’s flexibility

FreeWheel’s research shows that in the US, the majority of ad views (57%) were on live content, with the remaining 43% on VOD. In Europe, however, VOD captured the majority of ad exposure, 76%, compared to 26% of live programming.

This preference for VOD in Europe can be partly explained by the historical presence of free public service broadcasters (PSBs) and the prevalence of operator authentication in the region. In the U.S., the tendency is towards OTT distribution, which accounts for 65% of ad-supported content that is consumed.

Publishers are harnessing the flexibility of on-demand to further monetize their video inventory. And while VOD offers various monetization models, including subscription-based access (SVOD), pay-per-view (TVOD), and advertising-based access (AVOD), it’s the latter category where we’re seeing impressive growth. verall ad viewership on streaming platforms in the second half of 2024 was up by 24% year-on-year in Europe compared to 10% in the US.

Going beyond with interactivity

Our report also identifies interactivity as a potential growth area. The digital nature of streaming and CTV means they are primed for interactive viewer experiences that media owners and advertisers can utilize to boost engagement. The use of ad formats such as QR codes, clickable ads, and trivia quizzes are becoming more common to drive engagement at all stages of the marketing funnel.

Beyond helping brands to make more meaningful connections with consumers, interactive ads present an opportunity for media owners to capture deeper insights on how audiences interact with content and the ads. This offers a better understanding of which formats and approaches work – and which don’t.

Video, by its very nature, is never static. But these latest innovations are ushering in a new, golden age of video. CTV in combination with interactivity creates the ideal conditions to deliver a new genre of ads that can flow with the content to enhance viewer engagement and enjoyment. Harnessing streaming’s next phase of evolution will be critical to ensure content providers, advertisers and their agencies keep innovating and delivering new exciting experiences for the viewers.

*The data set used for the FreeWheel Video Marketplace Report H2 2024 is one of the largest available on the usage and monetization of professional, rights-managed ad-supported video content worldwide and is based on aggregated advertising data collected through the FreeWheel platform. The European countries included are Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

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Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Neuro-Insight’s new study, The Mind on the Stream, explores how advertisers can enhance the relevance of their CTV ads through tone and context. The research shows an increase of 14% in brand impact when the ads match the tone of the content viewed on CTV. Ads that match the context of the content experience show a significant boost in brand impact, +39%. Moreover, ads that match tone and context result in a greater significant increase of 49% in brand impact.

Matching advertising with content’s tone and context

The study includes a cohort of 137 participants in a controlled environment simulating an ad-supported streaming experience. All participants watch the same program content. During this simulated streaming experience, participants see 20 ads from 20 known brands across various verticals, including food/beverage, telecommunications, entertainment, finance, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). The ads vary in terms of length and narrative style.

The research tests the ads in two ways: tone/context and frequency.

Group 1 participants undergo tone and context variations, where some ads match the show’s context, some match its tone, and some match both tone and context.

• Tone matches when advertisers ensure that their ads align with the overall feeling or voice of the content they accompany. In this study, since the program content is humorous, the research examines the impact of running ads that are also humorous.
• Context matches when there’s a thematic or tangible connections between an ad and the program content. For instance, if the show features basketball, a contextually matched ad would also incorporate basketball elements.

Group 2 participants encounter different ad frequencies, with some ads appearing once, twice, three times, or four times during the program.

The study includes several metrics to measure the impact between Group 1 and Group 2 exposures.

• Detailed memory measures ad memorability and brand impact by analyzing how well viewers retain specific details from the ads.
• Emotional intensity gauges the emotional impact of the ads on viewers, with high scores indicating a strong emotional connection.
• Global memory assesses how well viewers remember the visual, audio, and thematic elements.
• Engagement measures the personal relevance of ad content to viewers.
• Approach/Withdraw identifies the “lean in” or “I want to learn more” response from viewers, indicating likeability and overall positivity or negativity towards the ads.

Ad frequency

Interestingly, viewers overall show lower interest in ads repeated multiple times on CTV. However, ads that align with the video content mitigate the negative impact of repetition and perform better among viewers despite increased frequency. While brand impact remains consistent through the third viewing of a CTV ad, the fourth viewing results in a significant decline of 26%. This emphasizes the importance of limiting ad frequency to three viewings to preserve viewer connection and comprehension.

Advertisers and streaming publishers can optimize their ad strategies and drive better results when matching ad tone and context with the content viewed on CTV. The study also underscores the critical role of ad frequency in viewer engagement. By embracing contextual targeting, marketers and publishers have an opportunity to shift ad budgets and deliver impactful results in the digital advertising landscape.

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1. Digital takes the top spot

In 2022, nearly $144 billion was invested in digital, print and TV advertising. While TV still makes up 41% of total ad spend, digital was the top ranking format making up 47% of all buys. Over $68 billion was allocated to digital formats. These formats include display, online video, native, and paid social among other formats. This marks an opportunity for continued growth in digital media sales. 

2. Top categories investing in TV are also top buyers of digital 

Four out of the top five categories buying TV ads are top digital buyers as well. Not surprisingly big spenders from finance, media & entertainment, retail, and tech brands drive digital ad sales.  TV investment for these, with the exception of media and entertainment, is down YoY. 

However, each of these categories are up YoY in digital ad sales. Their combined digital investment still exceeds $36.6 billion and made up 53% of all digital spend. This represents a shift in the market towards digital advertising among top segments.

3. Few advertisers entering the market bought national TV spots

Only 1% of advertisers entering the market bought national TV spots. Despite looming recession concerns, MediaRadar observed 52k new advertisers (nearly 80k brands) entered the market in the second half of 2022. Not all of these advertisers purchased TV spots (530), but over 36k invested in digital display, video advertising and other digital formats. 

4. Online video advertising is up 

Online video advertising is increasingly more important to advertisers as it rose 86% YoY. A study by Hubspot says, “91% of marketers surveyed say they find video important to their advertising mix and 92% of them say online video produces a high ROI.” These feelings are likely contributing to the continued growth of video ad sales across media formats. 

MediaRadar observed 31.1k advertisers spend an estimated $28.2b in video advertising during 2022.  Top three categories advertised via online video during 2022: software ($1.9 billion), pharma ($1.4 billion), and film promotion ($1.4 billion). Combined spend nearly reached $4.8 billion, this is only 17% of total online video spend.

5. OTT investments increased despite concerns 

Just a few years ago, new OTT streaming platforms were being launched regularly and consumers were anxious to embrace them. Now, platforms struggle to match growth of 2021 and prior. To overcome challenges groups, like Disney+ and Netflix, have introduced ad supported versions at a reduced cost to mixed reviews. Despite the challenges, 5.7k brands increased their investment in streaming platforms YoY. Together their buys were nearly $1.3 billion. Most notably LinkedIn, eHarmony, Kohl’s, and Febreeze contributed to this YoY increase. 

While the Upfronts and Newfronts are an increasingly important time for large networks and media conglomerates, it is also an important time for all media sellers to understand the shifting marketplace and carve their niche into the new year. There is much opportunity to capitalize on the changing advertising landscape and continued digital growth. 

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