connected TV

Public affairs broadcaster C-SPAN has launched a new app for connected TV users. C-SPAN Select will first be available to 12 million customers of Comcast Xfinity’s X1 service. Plans are also in place for the app to be available via Xfinity’s XFlex, and Xumo platforms this fall. The channel’s leaders say they hope to make the service available via other cable providers in addition to Xfinity in the coming months.

Agency executives surveyed by Pixability said they plan to invest more in CTV, even in an environment when some advertisers are being more conservative about spending in a cloudy economy.

Heading into the new year, advertisers need to identify how their audience has transformed because of connected TV, and what that means to their television plans.

Kroger Precision Marketing, the retail media business of supermarket giant Kroger, has opened its programmatic marketplace, enabling video and connected TV buyers to target ads using shopping data on consumer packaged goods. The data is being made available to advertisers through inventory suppliers including Magnite, OpenX, PubMatic and Xandr.

Innovid’s annual Global Benchmarks Report findings highlight connected TV’s success in reaching and engaging global audiences, reveals deeper measurement and optimization tactics.

Connected TV is expected to fuel strong growth in digital video advertising spending this year, according to a new outlook from the IAB. While digital video ad spending is seen growing 26% to $49.2 billion in 2022, CTV is expected to increase 39% to $21.2 billion. CTV spending increased 57% last year and has more than doubled between 2020 and 2022. In a survey, 76% of video buyers called CTV a “must buy” in their media planning budgets.

As the industry continues to try to solve the increasingly complicated measurement problem, YouTube and Nielsen have partnered to add co-viewing metrics to account for multiple viewers watching YouTube TV and YouTube on connected TV.

Journalists who have made the switch from traditional TV news to streaming media have found room to experiment and rewrite the rules in a medium that offers live linear and on-demand opportunities. Comparing notes during a TVNewsCheck webinar were (clockwise from upper left) Amagi’s Brian Ring, Atmosphere’s Micah Grimes, Cox Media Group’s Matthew Dominguez, AccuWeather Network’s Sarah Katt and LiveNOW from Fox’s Shareef Abul-Ela. 

ATSC 3.0 infrastructure will position TV stations to not just create their own OTT platforms, but also lease a portion of their spectrum for datacasting, location services and many other new revenue possibilities. Leading experts on monetizing NextGen TV offered their predictions and blueprints at a TVNewsCheck webinar last week sponsored by LTN Global. Above, map showing ATSC 3.0 coverage at the end of 2021 from E.W. Scripps.

Even though the world began to open up and people started going outside more in 2021, consumers are still streaming more than ever before. Time spent streaming grew globally 21% year-over-year in the third quarter, and up 2% in North America. Smart TVs, like Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Vizio, are continuing to see massive gains over external connected TV devices like a Chromecast or Apple TV. After nearly doubling their market share in 2020, smart TVs were responsible for nearly all the growth among big screens in the third quarter, up 64%.

David Bloom: The “We’ll be right back” slate is stark evidence that a streaming service or one of its distribution partners couldn’t sell a targeted ad for that particular moment. It’s a sign of failure, of wasted opportunity.

Connected TV has grown to the point where there are 55 million U.S. households that only watch CTV, according to a new study from Magnite. Those 55 million households mean that 40% of U.S. TV homes are reachable exclusively via CTV and not over the air or via traditional pay TV.

After a year of unprecedented growth in the connected TV space, the industry’s top players are flush with more users than ever. But the real battle is far from over, and connected TV platforms need to figure out the best way to keep those customers coming back.

Over-the-top advertising has become a surprisingly important business for companies that have been stockpiling television stations. Streaming revenue is letting broadcasters, including Cox Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and the NBC and Fox O&Os, claim a foothold in the technology field and create advanced advertising products for clients enamored of digital and social media.

A new Leichtman Research Group study finds the percentage of U.S. TV households connecting their TV to the internet to watch video has gone down this year, narrowly at least, to 39% from 40% in the pandemic year of 2020.

Innovid and Digiday’s State of CTV Advertising report surveyed brand marketers and agency execs to determine where industry stands in the CTV advertising picture.

Major TV networks are pushing brand TV advertisers to shift a significant part of their linear, live TV upfront budgets — 20% to 30% — into media company-owned connected TV platforms, according to media-buying executives. This comes a year after legacy TV-based media companies ramped up premium streaming CTV platforms, while recording sharply declining viewership on live, linear TV networks. “It is where their inventory is,” explains one veteran media agency executive.

Another CTV ad fraud scheme has hit servers in recent weeks — the second one discovered this year — with a estimated advertising cost of $5 million per month, according to DoubleVerify. This follows the ParrotTerra scheme discovered in February by DoubleVerify, estimated to have cost a much greater $30 million to $50 million in ad dollars, spoofing some 3.7 million devices.

While late to the ad game compared to the likes of Roku and Amazon, original equipment manufacturers like Vizio, Samsung and LG are hurriedly building out their advertising businesses as ad dollars flow into connected TV.

Another even larger advertising fraud scheme has been detected in the fast-growing but apparently vulnerable connected TV space. Dubbed ParrotTerra, the scam has managed to divert ad dollars by spoofing 3.7 million devices and 2.7 million IP addresses per day. DoubleVerify, a fraud monitoring service, estimates that ParrotTerra was on track to steal $30 million to $50 million.

With the CTV space growing ever more crowded, Discovery+ launched with a big bet that there’s room for “passing the day” programming on streaming. It’s banking on loyal subs to cut the cord, capturing international audiences and ad-supported tiers and commerce for the win.

Connected TV devices are proving to be a popular gift this holiday season, as Strategy Analytics is reporting that global sales of CTV devices are expected to reach record heights, largely due to both the holidays and people recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ad impressions delivered by connected TV grew by 55% in the third quarter compared to the prior year, according to ad and analytics company Innovid. In its fall 2020 U.S. Video Benchmarks Report, Innovid said the CTV’s share of video ad impressions jumped to 41% in the quarter from 33% a year ago.