Commentary

Roku Expectations: Big Ad Revs Mean More Opportunity For Brands In Connected TV

Roku keeps gaining big support from analysts -- especially when it comes to obvious growth around connected TV usage.

Now in more than 50 million homes, Roku looks to effectively replace two key parts of the distribution TV ecosystem: Distributors that cater to TV app-based platforms and traditional, live TV networks providers.

Not only does it have more than 100 linear advertising VOD channels access through its Roku Channel, it has over 21,000 apps in Roku App Store.

All this means lots of advertising potential for the service -- billions of impressions when it comes to premium linear and video-on-demand connected TV services, as well as more general entertainment apps.

Roku advertising revenue continues to soar. One analyst says in three years, Roku could amass $3.4 billion in advertising sales.

At this level, this would be a big 5% slice of the total average annual TV advertising revenues’ $70 billion take. Also factor in current connected TV revenues for this year, projected to be around $7 billion.

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These are pretty heady projections. And we haven’t included what Amazon’s growing Fire TV platform would mean in terms of added video ad dollars.

Current sticky points on CTV will continue for some time -- including fraud, lack of consistent measurement (as well as identifying specific audience segments), frequency issues and scarcity of advertising avails. Concerning the latrer, current rocketing higher growth -- from a growing number of platforms -- would address this inventory issue.

Wonder then what direction is left for the more traditional $70 billion TV ad market? Linear TV has seen a 24% reduction in pay TV households over the past few years.

Does linear TV have a big more fight, one more last stand in maintaining its big media leader status? Maybe the upfront needs some new branding -- and real-time association.

Think about the here and now. Many, such as Procter & Gamble’s Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard, say the upfront TV/media market should be a thing of past. No distractions of someone blocking your media view.

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