Automakers spent an estimated $216 million on national TV spending in October, down 24.1% year-over-year compared to $284.6 million.

Year-to-date spending also continues to fall, down 7.6% year-over-year to $1.8 billion compared to $1.9 billion during the same period in 2024, according to iSpot.tv.

Consequently, October 2025 household TV ad impressions dropped 9.6% to 16.9 billion compared to 18.7 billion October 2024. Year-to-date household TV ad impressions registered at 176.8 billion, down 15.4% YoY compared to 209.1 billion.

The top five brands by estimated national TV ad spend in October were Hyundai ($22.5 million), Chevrolet ($21.4 million), Honda ($19.5 million), Ford ($17.2 million) and Toyota ($16.6 million), according to iSpot.tv.

The most-seen automaker ads by share of household TV ad impressions in October were Kia: Get More of What You Want (3.82%), Chevrolet: Trail Boss Family (3.43%), Genesis: No Old Ideas (3.27%), Jeep: America’s Original Influencer (2.90%) and Lexus: Solo (2.37%).

NFL games accounted for nearly 60% of total auto industry estimated national TV ad spend in October. All of the top five automakers by spend allocated 68% or more of their total October outlay to NFL games, with Hyundai leaning in the most (NFL games captured 79% of its total spend). 

Additionally, nine of the top ten programs by industry spend were sports-related. The outlier was "Los hilos del pasado," a new telenovela that premiered on Univision in September. 

The top programs for automakers by share of household TV ad impressions in October 2025 were NFL (22.43%), college football (16.10%), MLB (9.90%), NBA (2.35%) and "SportsCenter" (1.25%).

“Although sports programming remains a major reach vehicle for auto brands, many also increased investment in Spanish-language content in October — a genre showing strong year-over-year growth as automakers attempt to deepen marketing efforts with Hispanic audiences,” Stuart Schwartzapfel, executive vice president of Media Partnerships at iSpot.tv, tells Marketing Daily. 

iSpot’s advanced audiences data reveals ongoing untapped opportunities around news programming: Automakers only had three ad airings during "The Five" (despite it ranking fifth for auto intender reach in October), and skipped "NBC Nightly News With Tom Llamas" entirely (it ranked sixth).

The top five brands by share of automaker household TV ad impressions in October 2025 were Toyota (10.63%), Hyundai (9.25%), Lexus (9.00%), Ford (8.06%) and Chevrolet (7.93%), according to iSpot.tv.

The top five brands by share of voice on streaming for the month were Hyundai (12.08%), Toyota (7.81%), Jeep (7.60%), Ram Trucks (7.23%) and Subaru (6.75%).

Two automakers made the top five by ad reach on both streaming and national linear TV: Hyundai and Toyota. Jeep, which ranked third for streaming reach, was No. 12 on linear while Ram Trucks was No. 4 on streaming but No. 11 on linear. 

The top automaker ads by likeability among the top 20 most-seen ads were  Subaru: Going Too Far (+9.4% more likeable than October automotive norm), Lexus: Solo (+5.3%), Chevrolet: Trail Boss Family (+5.3%), Jeep: America’s Original Influencer  (+4.7%) and Kia: Get More of What You Want(+4.1%).

The top automaker ads by positive purchase intent among the top 20 most-seen ads for the month were  Subaru: Going Too Far (58%), Chevrolet: Trail Boss Family (55%), Kia: Get More of What You Want (53%), Jeep: America’s Original Influencer (52%) and  Nissan: Next Level Adventure (52%).