• by Wayne Friedman , April 29, 2020

National TV marketing of video streaming platforms, driven by more at-home video viewing and previously committed higher spending from new platform launches, has witnessed sharply higher spending in April -- up nearly threefold.

Total spending has risen $113.4 million for the period from March 30 through April 28 -- versus $30.6 million over the same period a year ago, according to iSpot.tv.

This amounts to 9.5 billion collective impressions for the month period versus 3.4 billion impressions a year ago.

The top video streaming platforms in terms of spending are Hulu with $20.4 million, followed by Apple TV+ at $19.3 million; Amazon Prime Video, $17.9 million; AT&T TV, $12.5 million; Quibi, $12.1 million; Disney+, $7.1 million; Sling TV, $5.9 million; YouTube, $5.3 million; and Netflix, $4.0 million; and HBO Max, $2.7 million.

Over the last two weeks, two big premium video platforms expected to launch -- HBO Max and Peacock TV -- have been building TV marketing efforts for their respective expected starts.

With a May 27 launch, HBO Max has seen 884 airings of its creative -- mostly on sister TV network brands -- TNT, TBS, truTV, CNN, and Adult Swim, pulling 328.6 million impressions. This comes to an estimated media value of $2.7 million.

NBCUniversal's Peacock -- with a somewhat longer lead time and a broad-base launch set for July 15 -- has posted 171.6 million impressions, coming from 583 airings in the last two weeks and amounting to $58,000 in media value.

Similar to HBO Max, Peacock TV is initially relying on its sister network brands -- NBC, MSNBC, USA Network, E! And CNBC.