CTV Advertising is where it’s at. Brands love it due to the brand safety and targeting ability it provides, and, of course, so do digital media properties. CTV ad spending will see solid double-digit annual growth rates and reach US $46.89 billion in 2028. That year, it will surpass traditional TV ad spending (US $45.10 billion) for the first time, according to eMarketer.
1. What is the price of CTV versus other online video advertising options?
Brands get more brand safety assurances (along with valid traffic assurances) with CTV, and the pricing compared to other video advertising types reflects that. Social video pricing is generally $4 – $10. Online video pricing lies around $10 – $15 and can climb as high as $20. eMarketer tracked CPMs for Netflix, Disney, Peacock, and Hulu, ranging from $25 to $40 for direct. Programmatic CTV CPMs vary a ton, but generally, they’re in the $8 – $16 range during regular demand periods (i.e., not Q4/Holidays).
2. Wow, CTV pricing is much higher. So it must be very profitable, right?
Well, it may become very profitable for some of the major players. But it is a tale of haves and have-nots. Only properties that can scale and have substantial sales teams that sell directly instead of programmatic will gain from the CTV advertising opportunity. The CTV ad market is far more diffuse than the social network landscape, with only three companies accounting for more than 10% of CTV ad sales in 2026. These include YouTube, which is expected to have a revenue share of 11.9% of CTV ad revenues in 2026, according to eMarketer. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said a few days ago that TV is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. Other significant companies in the CTV space are Amazon (10% of overall CTV market share; Amazon Prime Video, Fire TV, Twitch, and Freeve), and Disney (11%+ share; Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN). Other prominent CTV advertising market players include NBCUni (Peacock) and Paramount (PlutoTV).
However, most CTV advertising providers are challenged because of the relatively smaller deal sizes those smaller players can offer/accommodate. Brands and agencies want to minimize the number of transactions to get to their budget; it takes more work to manage ten US $1 million buys than one US $10 million buy. So, buys at the lower end of the scale are more likely to be programmatic. The exceptions are those deals that involve custom ads, brand-content integration, activation, and the like. That’s what the more minor players do a lot of, but it’s a heavy lift for both the brand and the publisher. “It’s a hard way to make a living,” one insider tells Portada.
The CTV ad market is far more diffuse than the social network landscapea, with only three companies accounting for more than 10% of market share.
The tale of haves and have-nots among CTV players is also reflected in the lower ad fill rates of the smaller CTV advertising providers.
3. So, what is the typical CTV advertising fill rate?
“Low ad fill is a big issue in CTV, where USH spends a lot of time,” says media and advertising expert Stephen Brooks. He explains that as many as 50% of CTV publisher ad inventory goes unfilled – someone is watching, an impression is requested, but either no ad is delivered (lack of demand), an ad is delivered but is rejected (doesn’t conform to the platform’s specs), or the ad is delivered too late (the programmatic workflow is complicated and sometimes the system can’t accommodate a request in time). Brooks says this is “a huge missed opportunity, and it’s mostly a programmatic issue. But considering 75% of CTV ads are bought programmatically – and for mid-size publishers, that rate is even higher as the likes of Disney, Netflix, and Amazon are absorbing so much CTV direct ad demand – smaller, niche publishers – including Hispanic-targeted publishers – suffer disproportionately. Fixing low ad fill at least would lead to substantially more revenue from existing consumer activity.”
As many as 50% of CTV publisher ad inventory goes unfilled – someone is watching, and an impression is requested, but either no ad is delivered (lack of demand), an ad is delivered but is rejected (doesn’t conform to the platform’s specs), , or the ad is delivered too late.
Again, there are two distinctive groups. The top-tier providers—the 6 or 7 larger streamers—have fill rates around 80% to 90% or 5-9 minutes per hour, as most of their insertions are nonprogrammatic. These providers have varying subscription prices, with lower prices allowing for higher ad loads. Meanwhile, the smaller streamers, e.g. Canela Media, MyCode and many others, have much lower fill rates, reflected in an ad load of approximately 4 minutes per hour.
Fixing low ad fill at least would lead to substantially more revenue from existing consumer activity.
4. Where would VIX/Univision fall in this tale of haves and have-nots?
Due to some of the above mentioned technical challenges, Univision/Vix may have much lower fill rates than, for example, Paramount/Netflix. However, because Univision has a large TV operation, it can sell packages that combine linear and digital, which somewhat mitigates the lower fill rates. TV is collecting far more money, even more for Hispanics, because of two established competitors in that market, Univision and Telemundo.
5. Are the advertising fill rates for FAST higher than other CTV types?
Not really. Free ad-supported streaming television (FAST), e.g. (Revry, IGN), actually increases the technical challenges in CTV advertising served through programmatic. The reasons include:
1. More ads are needed per session. FAST lines up 4-6 ads in an ad break, while most CTV is 1-2 pre-rolls with mid-rolls for longer content. The more ads you call, the higher the chance something goes wrong.
2. Conforming versus non-conforming ads. CTV ads can be of any length. FAST ads must be exactly (within one-tenth of a second) :15 or :30. Most video ads are not exactly :15 or :30, but they all get uploaded into the same programmatic exchanges. CTV will call the runtime-nonconforming ad, and it’ll play. FAST will call the same ad, and it’ll be rejected, or if it’s accepted, it will prevent the following ad in the pod from filling (because that ad spot is now only 28 seconds long instead of 30).
3. Latency. CTV allows for longer latency. If it takes 2-3 seconds for an ad to load before your episode or movie launches, consumers are ok with that. That gives the ad server many more chances to find an ad. FAST is on a tight schedule, so there’s only so much time to find an appropriate ad. Some demand sources take just a fraction of a second too long to deliver an ad, and by the time they do, there’s no time to insert it into the ad pod, so it gets dropped while the server looks for a new ad for position #2.
Most video ads are not exactly :15 or :30, but they all get uploaded into the same programmatic exchanges. FAST will reject these ads from running.
6. Has the CTV advertising Inventory Increased?
Ad inventory of high-quality CTV has increased substantially as new major AVOD players (Amazon Prime, Netflix) enter the market. Everything changed in late 2022 when Netflix (November 2022), Disney+ (December 2022), and eventually Amazon Prime Video (January 2024) entered the market. Once these services offered an ad-supported tier, the high-production-value ad-supported digital content went through the roof. They created their pricing tier. Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount+ had been ad-supported since inception, and their CPMs were a reasonable premium over the likes of YouTube and Roku – mid-$20s to low-$30s. The big three entered the market at between $45 and $65. Those rates have come down a bit, but there’s still a clear delineation among services based primarily on the amount of premium content.
7. Did this increase in AVOD inventory bring in lower prices?
CTV has 40-70% less ad inventory per hour watched than linear TV, and when you factor in the lower ad fill rates, it’s even worse.
8. What role does CTV advertising play in overall video advertising?
CTV advertising is important but second to social video in market volume. CTV Advertising was only the second-largest video advertising revenue item 2024. Social video created and optimized for sharing on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok accounted for US $23.4 billion, followed by connected TV (CTV) at US $$22.7 billion, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in conjunction with Advertiser Perceptions and Guidelines. Finally, online video, video content accessible across various devices like phones, computers, and tablets lagged at US $16.8 billion.
Total CTV ad spending will see solid double-digit annual growth rates and reach $46.89 billion in 2028. That year, it will surpass traditional TV ad spending ($45.10 billion) for the first time.
