• by Wayne Friedman , June 2, 2020

After an initial decline in March when COVID-19 disruption began, over-the-top/connected TV advertising transactions from automated ad platforms rose 40% from April 5 through May 16, according to Pixalate.

There was a 14% decline in those impressions in early March, according to the global ad fraud research/marketing company.

Some of the big-name CTV app gainers, in terms of the number of programmatic ad impressions during this period on the Roku Store, were The CW (129%), Fox News Channel (103%), Hulu (44%), ABC (31%) and Sling TV (30%).

In terms of specific set-top-box/platform devices, Vizio TV sets grew 108% in programmatic ad impressions from April 5 through May 16, while Insignia TV devices were up 74%, Roku posted a 44% increase, and Apple devices were up 40%.

LG added 39%, while Microsoft was 30% higher, Chromecast was up 22%, Samsung was 21% higher, and Amazon was up 12%.

The biggest app growth categories were kids/family, up 128%; music, 118% higher; games, up 118%; food, 71% higher; movies/TV, up 48% and sports, 44% higher.

Pixalate’s data comes predominantly through open-auction programmatic traffic sources. Data was analyzed from programmatic advertising activity across more than 300 million connected TV/OTT devices.