• by Alex Weprin , December 13, 2018

As any observer of the connected TV landscape would tell you, the platform was ripe for growth this year. New data from the video supply monetization company Beachfront shines a bright light on just how strong that growth was.

According to Beachfront’s data, which tracked platform growth across all CTV devices, there were 1,718,541,020 CTV ad requests in November 2017, and 29,901,704,314 ad requests in November 2018. That would be growth of 1,640% year-over-year.

Among devices, Roku led the pack in 2018, just as it did in 2017. Roku accounted for 87% of CTV ad requests in 2018. One major change, however, was that Amazon Fire TV is now second in ad requests -- up from fourth in 2017.

Frank Sinton, the founder-president of Beachfront, tells Digital News Daily that three factors seem to be driving the explosive growth of CTV advertising.

Per Sinton, the “continued acceleration of cord-cutting,” combined with the increasing familiarity of content discovery on these platforms, makes for an easy transition for consumers. In addition, tech giants like Google and Amazon are invested in promoting their CTV wares, boosting the entire ecosystem. 

“This increases exposure and usage across all channels,” Sinton says.

“This sort of sharp incline for growth is the latest sign that ad-supported premium video content will continue to play a major role for publishers as they look to modernize their streaming content approach toward greater profitability,” Sinton adds. “These findings further prove connected TV can’t be viewed as an extension of digital spend, or reused linear TV advertising.”