TV Advertising Ups And Downs: Linear Sinks 8%, CTV Rises 21%
- by Wayne Friedman , May 15, 2023
As the start of the national TV upfront ad market draws near, total advertising -- for live, linear TV -- is estimated to drop 8% to $61.31 billion this year while total connected TV will rise 21% to $25.09 billion, according to eMarketer.
YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix are among those that will see big gains, according to this analysis -- with YouTube seeing the strongest rise.
In terms of the upfront itself -- where big brand advertisers typically commit 75% of their September- to-August TV season media before the season begins -- eMarketer says YouTube will get “as much money as any TV network.”
eMarketer did not provide specific details.
Typically, the major broadcast TV networks pull in between $1.5 billion and $3.0 billion per year during upfront deal-making.
When including all TV networks -- broadcast and cable networks -- those totals can typically be double. Walt Disney, for example, took in $9 billion in upfront commitments a year ago, while NBCUniversal tallied $7 billion.
advertisement
advertisement
Looking out four years from now, eMarketer says the total video advertising marketplace -- including linear TV networks and connected TV -- is projected to grow 13% to $97.73 billion -- with CTV rising to $40.90 billion and TV sinking to $56.83 billion.
These projections include TV data coming from all broadcast TV -- network, syndication, and local spot) -- and cable TV. Connected TV includes digital ads on CTV-devices, including includes display ads and in-stream ads on platforms like Hulu, Roku, and YouTube. But this excludes network sold inventory from traditional linear TV addressable TV deal-making.
Wayne, the figures cited in eMarketer's table are for all kinds of "TV", national as well as local and much of it has nothing to do with the national upfront sale.Taking last seson as an example, the total linear upfront--counting all dayparts and network types, includng syndication---was probably about $33 billion. In addition, we estimate that roughly $6.25 billion was spent in what were dubbed "CTV upfront deals" but in this case as streaming viewers can access content anytime they chose the distinctions by dayparts that are so rigid in linear TV don't always apply. A "prime time" CTV buy may derive only half of its audience in prime time. I can't supply a firm estimate for this coming upfront as yet but it is possible that the CTV portion may amount to around $7-9 billion.
As for which CTV services will score the largest gains if these are measured in actual dollars---not percent gains---Hulu may benefit greatly by being bundled in with Disney's other networks and YouTube should also do well---though I'm not sure that it will exceed what CBS or NBC take in. The Netflix situation is not as promising due to its disappointingly tiny subscriber base. It will probably meet strong buyer resistence on its high CPM demands due to its limited audience size.