• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 6 hours ago

Forget about linear TV being the main target by connected TV/streaming platforms in building up advertising revenue.

The bigger issue is whether connected TV (CTV) platforms can get a piece of the bigger search and social-media budgets.

Madison and Wall, a media/advertising analyst firm, questions whether CTV-focused demand-side platforms like Viant can achieve those results.

The analyst says Viant management argues that advertisers are overindexed on search and social and are becoming more skeptical of on-platform measurement.

“We are skeptical of this argument, and continue to expect search, social, and commerce to remain among the fastest-growing parts of the advertising industry this year and over the longer term.”

CTV platforms are also experiencing rapid growth. One analysis from programmatic ad-tech company GeoSpot Media says that while CTV captures over 20% of total media time, it gets only 7.7% from brands.

Roku Advertising -- which has much to benefit from this possible ad-spend shift -- cites Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) research showing that 36% of advertisers that plan to spend more on CTV will redirect those dollars from social media. In addition, 32% plan to shift budgets from paid search.

Why? It says generative AI platforms are disrupting things for search and social. But Roku says CTV is “largely protected from the most disruptive effects of gen AI.”

The question then may arise of where a future slowdown will appear first -- CTV, paid search or social. And it would be important to observe whether and when brands with mid-level CTV ad spend are easing up on CTV media-buying overall.

Roku says that around five years ago, CTV competed mainly on targeting and reach -- adding that now, from their point of view, it has positioned itself as the “safe harbor from AI-driven degradation of search/social.”

And what about outcomes -- whether viewers of HBO Max's “The Pitt” will jump to their phones to look up whether State Farm is a better deal for home/auto insurance versus Allstate and Geico?

Your CTV sellers obviously believe so -- such as Paramount Skydance, which claims CTV doesn't just perform better on its own, but lifts the performance of social and search campaigns that run at the same time.

In the most recent quarter, Viant has talked up a strong 50% rise in CTV ad spend on its platform along with 50% of its business now coming from CTV.

But it is somewhat tempered in its analysis about where most of the money is coming from.

Tim Vanderhook, CEO of Viant, says the big gains came from “the full migration of linear TV ad budgets to CTV, and the diversion of search and social performance budgets toward CTV.”

More discussion, and screen-watching ads of all types -- big and small -- are to come.