• by Wayne Friedman , February 16, 2018

For recent major sports events -- the Winter Olympics, NFL and the Super Bowl -- new digital pay TV providers and over-the-top entertainment apps have raised their on-air TV marketing efforts.

Since the beginning of this year -- through February 15 -- Hulu has spent $25.2 million in national TV advertising, with much of that media spend going into The Winter Olympics and The Super Bowl, according to iSpot.tv. It spent $22.9 million a year ago.

Netflix is right behind Hulu at $20.9 million and is also heavy around the Super Bowl weekend and NFL Football, including the playoffs. It was at $9.1 million a year ago.

YouTube spending -- including the live, linear YouTube TV platform -- is at $9.7 million, with most going to NBA Basketball and Super Bowl. No readily comparisons were available for the same time period a year ago. For 2017, YouTube spent $27.9 million.

Sling TV is at $11.7 million, with emphasis on NFL Football, and a variety of cable networks: NFL Network, TNT, AMC and TBS. A year ago, over the same period, Sling’s media spend was higher, at $16.7 million.

For this year-to-date, Sling TV spots had a total of 11,819 airings -- the most of all new digital TV platforms. Much of that came from smaller cable networks. Hulu was next with 4,954. iSpot.tv say all its airings data can include regional NFL game airings.

Amazon Prime Instant Video has spent $12 million, with 80% of those dollars focused around the Super Bowl. A year ago, Amazon spent around the same level, $12.1 million.

For a new campaign starting about 10 days ago, DirecTV Now has spent $3 million, with 212 airings of its commercial. Overall, DirecTV is at $88.2 million for its traditional pay TV satellite business for the first six weeks of the new year.

iSpot.tv gets its TV advertising data from approximately 10 million smart TV sets using Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) Technology.