Ä¢¹½AV

The news: The 2025 NBA Finals drew just 10.2 million viewers on average, among the weakest results in two decades—yet Game 7 peaked at 19.3 million, the highest since 2019. Traditional ratings miss the full picture, though: social views on NBA Finals content soared 215% year over year to 5 billion. Our take: Gen Z sports fans are watching differently—via highlights, short clips, and mobile-first formats on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. TV still matters, but leagues like the NBA must master new distribution models. With streaming growth and a massive $76B media deal in place, the future is already digital.

The news: US adults are increasingly dependent on digital platforms for news, with social media and video overtaking traditional news outlets for the first time. 54% of US adults get their news from social media, per the Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report, compared with 50% from TV news and 48% from news websites and apps. Our take: Linear platforms could offer personalized news digests and mobile- and social- friendly content to reengage younger users, while advertisers should diversify their campaigns across social media platforms to follow fragmented user engagement.

Digital sports viewership surpasses TV: Fragmentation challenges consumers, while younger audiences drive demand for highlights and streaming innovation.

The news: Streaming’s share of television usage skyrocketed to 46% in June, while time spent with streaming increased 5.4% versus May, per Nielsen’s Total TV/Streaming Snapshot. Streaming was far above cable (23.4%) and broadcast (18.5%), growing nearly 6% YoY compared with June 2024. Our take: Advertisers are navigating a challenging landscape where connecting with broad audiences necessitates investment in a format that has yet to prove its ability to drive action. A diversified approach is key. While attention and dollars are shifting toward CTV, advertisers can’t discount the effectiveness of traditional formats.

US political ad spending will hit new highs amid the 2024 presidential election, with connected TV (CTV) driving the biggest gains. Despite the digital shift, traditional TV—long a mainstay of political advertising—will hold its own.

Generational data underscores the acceleration of digital-first habits and the deceleration of traditional TV viewing; the latter is increasingly the preserve of older audiences. In 2020, adults 65 and older accounted for 27.6% of traditional TV viewing time, and that will rise to 36.4% in 2025. At the same time, every age group under 55 will see proportional declines.

The news: Advertisers are increasing investment in up-and-coming digital advertising channels as the shift away from traditional continues, per a DoubleVerify study. Social media maintains the highest level of investment among North American marketers. Seventy-nine percent are already investing, while 19% have plans to. Our take: High-performing traditional ad formats are being overlooked because they’re harder to measure—but optimizing for attribution over outcomes could come at a cost.

Healthcare companies slashed marketing budgets in 2024: This points to lower spending, but also more efficiency as companies move from traditional expensive TV plans to more targeted TV, digital, and social media.

Digital pay TV services are slowing cord-cutting. But the rate at which they replace traditional TV defectors is decelerating.

The news: TV ad-supported viewing time grew 2% overall in Q2 across linear and streaming, reaching 73.6% of total time spent watching TV, per Nielsen—largely driven by streaming. Ad-supported streaming grew 7% to a 45.3% share—but broadcast and cable continued a downward trend. Our take: As streaming solidifies its lead in ad-supported viewership, the smartest advertisers will recognize that success hinges on striking a delicate balance of using streaming’s precision to target key audiences that are shifting to CTV, while leveraging linear’s scale and ability to drive action.

And for the first time this year, time spent with CTV is projected to outpace time spent with traditional TV—indicating that CTV provides an increasingly lucrative opportunity for advertisers to reach target audiences. Yes, but: While CTV will likely continue to outpace traditional TV, there are challenges with the format.

CTV finally surpasses traditional TV. For the first time ever, our analysts say connected TV (CTV) viewing will surpass traditional linear television in 2025. This year, CTV will edge past linear TV by six minutes per day, according to Ä¢¹½AV's latest time spent forecast.

While traditional TV usage is declining, audience engagement has remained strong, particularly in Japan and South Korea. Key Question: How will daily time spent with media evolve in China, India, Japan, and South Korea? Key Stat: TV viewers in Japan and South Korea will spend 3 hours, 37 minutes (3:37) and 3:19, respectively, on TV daily in 2025.

Though still behind traditional TV in live sports, Amazon is closing the gap, retaining viewers longer and increasing ad impressions. Meanwhile, YouTube’s vast but user-generated content mix poses brand-safety challenges that make some advertisers cautious. Our take: Marketers should expect CTV ad dollars to shift toward Amazon’s ecosystem by 2027.

Marketers should feel empowered to research and identify what CTV campaigns can offer compared to traditional TV. 3. CTV advertisers are already benefiting from measurement and performance goals. Key stat: CTV advertisers say one of the channel's top benefits (28%) is its detailed reporting, measurement, and insights, according to an April 2024 Advertiser Perceptions and Premion study.

As traditional TV viewership continues to wane, subscription-based streaming platforms will emerge as the predominant mode for consuming TV content. Traditional TV has an older, more dedicated audience, which boosts its time spent. But subscription OTT (sub OTT) platforms will have 22 million more monthly viewers this year, per our forecasts.

Our take: Contextually relevant ads could help CTV ad spending’s continued growth; we forecast that CTV ad sales will hit $46.9 billion by 2028, overtaking traditional TV for the first time. Contextually relevant ads could help make CTV commerce catch on.

The number of digital live sports viewers has already surpassed traditional TV viewers—giving advertisers new platforms and opportunities to reach audiences. Our take: TikTok and Apple TV’s newest move is another bid to capitalize on a well-known athlete in a profitable genre, where advertising opportunities are plentiful and success is essentially guaranteed.