Commentary

Linear TV Resilience Frustrates Digital Ad Platforms

by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, Yesterday

According to Nielsen’s Gauge, just about one-half of all viewing on TV in the U.S. is still delivered by cable, broadcast, or satellite. And more than 80% of all TV ad viewing time is also linear, since so much streaming viewing is on ad-free or ad-light services.

Most analysts don’t expect to see even 75% of ad viewing time on streaming until well into the 2030s. So, if you are an independent digital ad buying platform hoping to capture revenue growth from the burgeoning CTV ad market, you have a problem. You are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

The "rock" is the fast-growing video ad businesses of walled gardens Amazon Prime and Google/Youtube sucking up much of the true CTV ad growth, neither of which need your platform. And the “hard place” is the fact that the better part of $50 billion of U.S. premium video ad spend is still captured by linear TV companies, and digital ad platforms are totally shut out of that spend. None have any linear TV ad buying capabilities, possessing neither data-driven linear targeting and measurement tools, nor automated capabilities for planning, buying and reconciliation.

Sure, streaming ads will grow and linear TV ads will decline, but not nearly as fast as the space between the rock and the hard place will compress for the digital ad platforms.

Just read any of the top Wall Street analysts covering The Trade Desk. Price competition from Amazon and Google is growing by the day (and don’t forget Walmart is moving fast into TV video, let alone the growing competition from social video). Consequently, platforms like The Trade Desk no longer have large “green fields” of unimpeded growth in front of them.

Programmatic banner ad volume and margins are collapsing. The vast majority of premium CTV ad inventory is controlled by a limited number of players, and most buyers want guaranteed deals in advance, frequently based on content, not audience, and don’t need overbuilt bidding, billing and data exchange platforms to manage these deals.

All the major digital players are fighting over streaming ad growth, and there just isn’t enough to go around.

Of course, if linear TV distribution suddenly fell off a cliff, it would be a different story.

Net, net: Anyone not a walled garden is going to have to find a way to capture and manage linear TV ad inventory and transactions directly -- and now, because most won’t find enough growth in competition with walled gardens to make it for another seven to 10 years, when linear TV ad channels finally become irrelevant.

For sure, digital ad platforms are frustrated by linear TV’s resilience. They can't grow at the speed public investors demand without that video audience and ad revenue. What do you think?

10 comments about "Linear TV Resilience Frustrates Digital Ad Platforms".

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Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler, August 13, 2026 at 9:33 p.m.
This points to a problem though... we're segmenting video viewership into two tiers, the tier that pays their way out of adverting, and the tier that does (can-)not.

But study after study has revealed the ccorrelation between people who have money, and people who buy stuff.

We were watching Bosch on Prime, when a commercial break popped up. "WTF?," my wife and I said together, as at the time neither of us had seen a commercial on Prime. I grabbed my phone and looked it up-- for another $3 a month, we could buy up to the ad-free tier. I upgraded before the pod was done.

I'm guessing that if you looked at impressions viewed by quintiles of household income, the bottom 2 quintiles are seeing 70% of the imopressions. Maybe more.
Reply

Dave Morgan from Simulmedia replied, August 13, 2026 at 11:08 p.m.

Great pojnts Josh, but lets not forget that TV was never a medium for luxury brands. You are not their target. The biggest spenders on TV have came from brands the McDonakds, State Farm, Bud Light, Walmart, Pampers, etc. Free and low cost TV in places where fixed broadband is a luxury (where I'm from) is the biggestvmedia channel.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc replied, August 14, 2026 at 7:35 a.m.

Josh, adults with low household incomes have always been the most frequent broadcast TV and cable viewers as the activity piles up in the daytime and early evening hours--plus weekends--- to a greater extent than in prime.But even in prime they outview the upscale lot to a degree.

Bear in mind that low income groups fall into two clearly defined segments. The majority are older adults with low current incomes as many are retired ( many are home owners or own stocks, bonds, etc. so a low income as defined by current income does not automatically equate with net worth. ) And older adults are, by far TV's heaviest viewers. The second segment--and there is age overlap---is the Black community--traditionally more frequent TV viewers than "whites".

The interesting question is whether this pattern will carry over to streaming. I expect that it will, though if a significant linear TV presence remains--say 30% penetration----this will slow down the low income migration to streaming and it's inevitable effect.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 14, 2026 at 7:48 a.m.

Dave, rey our point about TV never being for luxury brands, in my expoerience this has not been true. The upscale advertiser did not reject TV because low income groups watched more of it than upper income folks--so long as enough of the former could be reached by TV's more powerful ad messages.

So luxury cars, banks, financial services, etc. have always been big TV users even if few TV shows delivered higher compositions of upscale versus downscale viewers. Upscale reach was never in question--they all watched TV--just less of it. A two hours a day viewing diet for an affluent adult versus five hours a day for a lowbrow, afforded the luxury brand sufficient opportunities to reach its kind of customers via TV.

Dave Morgan from Simulmedia replied, August 14, 2026 at 8:41 a.m.

Ed, of course, luxury brands have used TV. My point is that the TV audience and its reach was never the primary media for those brands ... magazines, events, direct marketing have generally been more efficient than TV since TV's audience is so media and viewership screwed middle and lower income. And yes, Broad TV is sometimes in their mix. As Irwin Gotlieb always says, "If the first time you see a Mercdes Benz ad is when you can afford it, Mercedes Benz has a problem."

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 14, 2026 at 8:57 a.m.

Dave, what I meant was that upsacle brands still regarded TV as their most effective way to communicate their message--even if they also used magazines and other more "selective" media. As to their spending, we had plenty of upscale clients at BBDO-- "The Wall Street Journal", City Bank, GE, U.S. Steel, various car brands, etc. and they spent heavily on TV.

Dave Morgan from Simulmedia replied, August 14, 2026 at 9:46 a.m.

Ed, to be clear. TV viewers may not have the highest income levels at the highest veiwing levels, but that doesn't mean that they are desttute. I would expect to see brands like banks, cars, industrials, and business publications on the air.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 14, 2026 at 9:52 a.m.

Dave, I absolutely agree..

Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler replied, August 14, 2026 at 12:30 p.m.

Ed, I know this... but streaming exacerbates the problem by accelerating the extent to which money buys your way out od ads. Cable always had HBO. But streamers including Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, and Peacock all have ad-free, or almost-ad-free, tiers. Viewing shifting to platforms that allow you to buy your way out of ads is a new dynamic that will have blowback.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 14, 2026 at 4:43 p.m.

Agree, Josh.

What I see happening is that streaming is being taken over by the linear guys due to the power of the ad dollars that are following them there. Couple that with the simple fact that there isn't enough streaming viewing--0nly two hours p--and there's problem.

Add to that the fact there are too many "premium" streaming services for all to be profitable under the ad-free subscription or low ad clutter AVOD business models which are not supported by carriage/retransmission fees as is linear TV, and the services are being forced into the ad business to try to make significant profits. In linear TV's heyday only two of the three broadcast networks made 5-10% pre tax profits per year while one usually lost money. Imagine what would have happened if, instead of three networks there had been more than a dozen, LOL.