Commentary
Video Just Killed The Upfront Star
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, April 28, 2025
Powered by sports and other live streaming events, digital video has overtaken linear TV as the dominant media buy heading into this upfront season. That's the top line of an Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) analysis of data from ad spending tracker Guideline, and ad industry B2B sentiment researcher Advertiser Perceptions.
The report -- part one of the IAB's 2025 "Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report" -- projects digital video will capture nearly 60% of total TV/video ad spending this year. That's more than double what the IAB estimates digital video's share was just five years ago.
The analysis projects U.S. digital video ad spending will top $72 billion this year, up 14% from 2014's $64 billion, led by an acceleration of spending by CPG, retail and pharma marketers.
Importantly, the growth is not just being accelerated by big brands, but also is being fueled by small and mid-size advertisers tapping into the burgeoning marketplace of self-serve, programmatic CTV advertising platforms.
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The IAB's projections may seem bullish given the overall downturn in total U.S. ad spending to date, and continuing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, and bureau CEO David Cohen acknowledges those caveats, noting, "It is important to acknowledge that ongoing economic uncertainty, including tariffs, geopolitical conflicts, and changing consumer confidence, the marketplace in 2025 is more difficult to predict than ever before."
In other words, as much as the analysis forecasts continuing digital video ad spending momentum, anything can happen, but the medium seems like the safest bet and surest hedge in terms of media planning.
Among the study's other findings are that all three components of digital video -- CTV, social video, and online video -- are driving the overall channel’s trajectory, with each posting double-digit growth:
Digital Video Category | Ad Spend in 2023 | Ad Spend in 2024 | YoY Growth (2024 vs. 2023) | Projected Ad Spend in 2025 |
CTV | $20.3B | $23.6B | 16% | $26.6B |
Social Video | $19.5B | $23.7B | 21% | $27.2B |
Online Video | $14.2B | $16.6B | 17% | $18.6B |
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
Joe, I don't think that digital video has killed "the upfront star". And by upfront I gues that they mean linear TV, not CTV, which got about $11 billion in upfront ad dollars for this season. Also, did they cite how much viewing time sports gets on digital video---and by sports I mean pro team sports --- baseball, football, basketball and hocky. Not much--at least for now. I would add that CTV aside, the majority of digital video ad messages are 15 seconds or shorter and attentiveness studies indicate that they perform well below their "TV" counterparts in getting people to look at them as well as in dwell time. In contrast, about half of linear TV and CTV upfront bought commercial positions wil be :30s and roughly half of the program viewers will look at an average ad placement.
@Ed Papazian: You are technically correct that the IAB study did not explicitly ask for share of upfront spending that will go to linear vs. digital video this year. We'll all have to wait for an upcoming Media Dynamics analysis to learn that.
My point was that linear won't be the "star" this upfront, because if you've attended any of the big linear networks upfronts in recent years, you know how much they tout non-linear in their pitches.
Does Media Dynamics have any numbers on the share of the linear networks' upfront dollars came from CTV/streaming services vs. linear network programming?
Lastly, I did not include this in my column, but its from interviews Advertiser Percpetions did with 368 ad executives about what parts of the mix they deem to be a "must buy" this year:
% THAT CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING A “MUST BUY”
(i.e., NECESSARY FOR MEDIA PLAN)
CTV 68%
Social video 62%
National broadcast/cable TV 39%
Online video (OLV) 37%
Audience-addressable TV 33%
Local broadcast/cable TV 33%
Audience-indexed linear TV 27%
Joe, I'm surprised--bsed on the headline--- that you think of "linear TV as "TV" and CTV plus digital video as something else--I guess its "digital TV"? We think of "TV" as linear TV plus CTV and that's where our focus is on the upfront.
You asked about the CTV share relative to linear and , of course, we estimate that each year. For the current season, the "prime time" upfront generated $18.4 billion for linear and $11.1 billion for streaming--which gave the CTV component 38% of the total--though, unlike linear, there's no telling when a CTV viewer will be watching. However, if one includes all of the other upfront buys--the various non-prime dayparts for broadcast TV, cable and national syndication ---the total ad spend for the upfront rose to about $42 bilion. So, naturally, the CTV share is much smaller that 38%.
Finally, as regards that study about the "must buy" standings of the various "TV" platforms, I don't see it as applying to the upfront in any way. Even if the sample is a perfect representation of the entire TV time buying marketplace and the answers are taken literally, many of the platforms are not competing for upfront ad dollars--except only very indirectly. For example the sales promotion arm of a large natinal TV advertiser may consider social media a "must buy" for short term sales promotional activities--but the same company's branding people, using a different agency and having long term branding goals---are likely not even thinking about social media when upfront planning time nears. Their focus is on what the company feels is national TV--namely linear TV and/or CTV.
@Ed Papazian: To clarify, it's not how I think, it's how people and organizations we cover -- in this case, the IAB, Guideline and Advertiser Perceptions -- think. I wrote about their findings and how they categorized things.
If you want to know what I think -- personally -- it's that if it's a "TV-like" experience, it's television to me. If it's not, it's something else.
If you look at some of our coverage in recent years about how various industry bean-counters have been adapting and evolving their "line items" -- GroupM in particular -- media categorization is getting blurrier and more fungible than ever, because of the nature of didital media.
Case in point: YouTube is now the biggest audio medium in the world, based on the fact that they pay more to license music than any other platform. But how many people think of YouTube as "radio," "audio," or an analagous category?
Joe, just out of curiosity, how do you feel most national branding advertisers--the big upfront spenders----define "TV"? With a few exceptions--and there always are some--in my experience they think of TV as professionally made content viewed on a TV set's screen with the content either attained via linear means or via streaming. And they want their commercials to be positioned in breaks within such content that do not appear randomly --interrupting scenes---nor do they want the ad time seller to invite audiences to zap said commercials if they desire.
What do they mean by professionally made content?
Anything put out by an entity that is established as a producer of "TV" shows- ranging from talk shows to talent contests or "real housewife" shows to the evening news, "Wheel Of Fortune", NFL games,or a police -detective drama--and I'd toss in most feastue films, too. They don't regard grainy reruns with poor sound of a public domain movie--or an old sitcom or a home made video about someone's pet poodle, or a video telling us the true story about Marlon Brando--like who he supposedly hated. As for length, make it at least a half hour --24 minutes--- duration--- and don't place any commercials in "pre-roll" spots .
please--with three seconds to zap them.
Frankly, most if not all of the ad folks I talk to define "TV" in this manner--and I tend to agree with them. That doesn't mean that they shouln't use social media at all. But very few upfront planning operations I have seen or heard about ask the brands to state their digital video needs--at least not for now.
Ed--
There is a problem with this definition of TV, and to illustrate this prtoblem I'll offer up my soon-to-be-21-year-old daughter.
One afternoon when she was 14 I was walking past her room, and the door was shut. So I called in, "What are you doing?" She said, "Watching TV."
She didn't HAVE a TV.
What she was doing was watching Netflix on an iPad.
She (and her entire demographic cohort) watch very little of what fits into yur definition of "TV." When I was at Comscore and we had a meeting with a room full of 30-and-under planners (say a dozen), I would always ask, "How many of yu have a TV?" It wasn't uncommon that no hands went up (or maybe 1 or 2.)
I said the same thing about landlines, when younger people were committed to cell phones; no one is going to wake up one day and say, "I'm 40, I have 2 kids and a big house in the suburbs-- I need a landline!"
I understand how the major brand advertisers feel about what counts as "TV." But if we continue to define "TV" as being watched on TV, we are going to limit the definition to a medium consumed by viewers with the lowest CLV (i.e., the oldest.).
Josh, when I explain the "definition" of "TV", what I am representing is what many advertisers, agency creatives and media people think. My own definition would be much like yours--anything that is seen on a screen--any screen--at a movie theater, at a bar, at home on a TV set, who knows where on a mobile screen,etc.
I have no doubt that there are some people who only use one of these methods--be it a mobile phone or an old fashioned TV set--to watch "TV". However, the vast majority ---over 90%--- of professionally made content of at least 30 minutes duration per episode, with in-show breaks that do not interrupt scenes, is consumed via a TV set and at home.
Over and above that, if you try to compare the various ways of "watching" TV as it applies to commercials, you will find that "impresions" calculated by device usage data based on the fact that a commercial was on- screen for two or more seconds are not comparable across platforms where true ad exposure and impact are concerned.. Old fashioned TV set viewing generates much greater ad attentiveness among consumers than the others. Indeed, if you take the issue of ad avoidance by sound muting, even though this applies to traditional TV as well, it's a far greater problem on mobile.
Most sensible advertisers understand that no form of "TV" will capture and hold the attention of every viewer every time an ad presents itself on a screen. But they a so understand that just because a relative handful of teens and very young adults --maybe 10%, who knows--don't use traditionjal TV at all--ever----that factors other than advertising account for 85% or more of their sales--product quality, distribution, price, word-of-mouth endorsements, brand image, etc. Consequently, even these very young--impossible to reac via traditional TV--- folks may still buy their products. Meanwhile they focus on the 85-90% who are reachable via "TV" and try to use those platforms that not only target certain groups but, more important, are ad-friendly--so their messages are more likely to have a positive effect.