US linear TV ad spend is shrinking (8.0% YoY) as connected TV (CTV) ad spend grows (21.2% YoY). This year, US CTV ad spend will total $25.09 billion while linear will total $61.31 billion.
“The future is now for CTV,” our analyst Paul Verna said on a recent episode of the “Behind the Numbers” podcast. “It’s not three years from now. It’s not five or 10 years from now. It’s right now. But there’s still a lot of value in linear TV.”
Linear versus CTV: Both formats have an advertising use case, because US adults still spend several hours per day on both platforms—2 hours, 55 minutes for linear TV and 1 hour, 55 minutes for CTV.
Spending on CTV: Hulu ($3.63 billion), YouTube ($2.89 billion), and Roku ($2.19 billion) lead the US CTV ad market this year. Don’t expect that to change right away.
Changing the channels: “I don’t think the [CTV ad spend] leaderboard is necessarily going to shift, at least not dramatically. But there are a lot of players that are coming into the ad-supported space,” said Verna.
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