• by Wayne Friedman , November 1, 2019

With Apple TV+ just launched and Disney+ coming online in a few days, the last two weeks of October have seen a sharp rise in TV advertising for OTT video services by big media players.

Apple TV+ has spent $16.7 million in national/regional TV advertising (1,206 airings), followed by Amazon Prime Video with $12.9 million (1,202 airings), YouTube TV at $11.2 million (254 airings), DAZN (an over-the-top subscription sports streaming service) with $8.5 million (536 airings) and Disney+ at $8.4 million (1,014 airings), according to iSpot.tv.

Among other streaming services, Hulu comes in at $5.1 million (1,990 airings), followed by Netflix at $2.9 million (75 airings) Sling TV with $2.6 million (1,981 airings), Facebook Watch at $2.2 million (249 airings) and ESPN+ with $974,000 (953 airings).

In total, some $73.2 million has been estimated to have been spent by video streamers on national/regional TV commercials from Oct. 18 through Nov. 1.

For the entire month of October, video streaming marketing spending was at $99.3 million -- with Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ steadily increasing their spending during the month.

A year ago in October, spending came in at $82.5 million due to the competitive battle among most virtual pay TV services that provide live, linear TV networks: Hulu with $14.8 million; YouTube TV at $13.3 million; Amazon Prime Video with $13.2 million; Sling TV at $12.4 million, and Sony’s PlayStation Vue at $11.3 million.

This past week Sony said its four-year-old PlayStation Vue would be stopping its vMVPD (virtual multichannel video program distributor) platform in 2020.