2025 Predictions for Ad-Supported Streaming

The start of a new year is nothing without everyone making predictions, so here are a few that apply to the advertising industry. Advertising in streaming is doing pretty well when we compare it to following ad dollars that have left linear.

Leaning Into CTV Advertising: What the Latest Data Says

We've reported any number of times on the growth of CTV advertising as it continues to steal marketshare from traditional linear, but is CTV still the golden child? Mediaocean's 2025 Advertising Outlook Report suggests the balance is shifting, as 68% of 688 marketing professionals surveyed say they expect to increase their spend on social in the first half of 2025, compared to 67% for digital video/digital display and only 55% for CTV.

CES 2025: Disney Talks Ad Tech, Ad Targeting, and Ad Buying

One of the ongoing complaints about the ad industry is a lack of transparency about where you're buying and how it's measured. At CES 2025, Disney discussed their new global ad tech stack and how they're attempting to solve this problem and bring an easier and more understandable approach to ad buying.

Fubo Debuts Four New Interactive CTV Ad Formats Including Transactional and Gamified Ads

FuboTV, the leading sports-first live TV streaming platform, announced the availability of four new interactive CTV ad formats to further drive audience ad engagement. The personalized and dynamic experiences, including transactional and gamified ad formats, are part of Fubo's ongoing commitment to ad innovation and overall strategy to connect, interact with and convert premium audiences.

Roundup: Streaming Industry Predictions for 2025

In the last few weeks, my own editorial inbox has filled to bursting with unsolicited but much-welcomed season's greetings from a disparate array of industry experts and thought leaders ringing in "End-of-Year Prediction Season" with all manner of prognostications about what's to come in 2025. Here's a quick roundup of the most intriguing, thoughtful, and surprising ones, organized into some rough categories.

Why the DAZN and NFL Game Pass Partnership is Thriving - a Q&A With Zander Berlinski

The NFL has shared its pleasure with the existing ten-year DAZN Partnership for NFL Game Pass. DAZN's global footprint gives the NFL a much wider reach, which is hugely important as it continues to expand worldwide. In this Q&A with Zander Berlinski, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at DAZN, he highlights the factors that make this partnership a success, such as improved live streaming quality, expanding device distribution, investing in proprietary tech stacks, enhancing user experience with features like the "Home of NFL" section, and much more.

Global Streaming Subs Set to Reach 2bn by 2029, Ampere Reports

The global video streaming market is poised to generate $190bn annually from 2bn paid subscriptions by 2029, according to new analysis from Ampere. Key strategic developments, like Netflix's account-sharing crackdown and cheaper ad tier offer, and rivals Disney+ and Max's aggressive approach to bundling, are driving revenue growth in saturated streaming markets. Maria Dunleavey, Research Manager, provides some additional insight into these findings.

Free Streaming and Sports

The second half of 2023 saw the launch of numerous premium brands and the rise of exclusive deals. What has happened in the FAST sports landscape since then? Let's find out.

Roku's 2025 Predictions - A Q&A With Tedd Cittadine

Roku has released its 2025 predictions report. Tedd Cittadine, SVP of Streaming Services Partnerships at Roku, discusses the key findings, including the impact of price increases on audience retention, the effectiveness of advertising-supported tiers, the importance of bundling strategies to meet consumer demand for flexibility, and the growing significance of sports programming in driving subscriptions.

Chick-fil-A’s Play App: A Family-Focused Strategy with a Strategic Edge

Why the heck would Chick-fil-A start a streaming channel? Is this a completely new strategy or a copycat move? I endeavored to find out, and this is what I learned.

How Can AI Identify Emotions That Make Up the "Holiday Spirit" in CTV Content? A Q&A With Wurl's Ron Gutman

A Q&A with Ron Gutman, CEO of Wurl, about their Gen AI-powered technology that matches CTV ads to the emotion and context of what viewers are watching using Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. This technology has identified the emotions that make up the "Holiday Spirit" and found that the key emotions are "trust and joy."

Live Sports in the Streaming Era: What’s Changing and Why It Matters

Samba TV's recently released report, Live Sports on Streaming Platforms, provides five key sets of data points to help advertisers and sports leagues better target their audiences both during and after live sporting events. The report begins with insights into web-only sporting events, revealing audience numbers for the most-watched and least-watched games on platforms like Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

Ad Buys: StackAdapt, Disney, and Bell Target SMB

StackAdapt recently announced they are working with Disney and Bell Media to provide their demand-side platform for agencies to access inventory programmatically.

CTV Advertising Strategies for the Holiday Season - A Q&A With Angelina Marmorato of Lemma

With the holiday season upon us, consumers are ramping up spending and turning to CTV more than ever. Angelina Marmorato, AVP of Sales and Partnerships at Lemma, has put together a set of actionable strategies for brands to maximize their holiday advertising impact on CTV. In this Q&A, she gets into the specifics of each of her strategy points and how advertisers can best optimize them.

Gracenote Resources Provide New Insights into State of Streaming Content

Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has launched a new Data Hub providing insight into the current state of SVOD programming to identify global content trends and changes over time. Tapping Gracenote Global Video Data, the industry's most comprehensive database of TV show and movie information, the data visualization graphically illustrates the current makeup of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Paramount+ content catalogs to provide visibility into the programming that's keeping viewers engaged today. In this article, Trent Wheeler, Chief Product Officer of Gracenote, provides further insights about the benefits of the new Data Hub.

ICYMI: Streaming Media Connect November 2024

Streaming Media presented its 15th Connect virtual conference November 12-14, 2024, with Media Industry Cartographer & CEO ESHAP Evan Shapiro and Streaming Media Editor-in-Chief Steve Nathans-Kelly as hosts and MCs, and featuring speakers from Microsoft, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Vevo, Philo, and more, and session topics ranging from streaming monetization to FAST strategy to OTT bundling to cloud streaming OpEx and live streaming at scale.

Fireside Chat: Evan Shapiro Discusses DirecTV's New FAST Product With Matthew Van Houten

At Streaming Media Connect, Media Cartographer Evan Shapiro interviewed Matt Van Houten, SVP of Advertising at DirecTV, about the company's new fast product, MyFree DirecTV, which integrates free ad-supported streaming channels into the DirecTV ecosystem.

Fireside Chat: Evan Shapiro Talks Advertising Data With Justin Evans of Samsung Ads

At Streaming Media Connect, Media Cartographer Evan Shapiro sat down for virtual a fireside chat with Justin Evans, Head of Innovations & Insights, Samsung Ads to discuss the importance of data in advertising, the role of Samsung Ads in the streaming revolution, and the introduction of a new product called Optimal Reach.

Pluto TV Announces New Partnership With NBCUniversal

Pluto TV partners with NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution to expand its content lineup in the UK and Canada.

Sneak Preview: Measurement Matters - Delivering Better Audience Data to Streaming Advertisers

On Thursday, November 14, industry thought leader Erin Firneno will moderate the panel "Measurement Matters: Delivering Better Audience Data to Streaming Advertisers." The promise of streaming as a boon to advertisers has always been its potential to help them target audiences more precisely by delivering more substantive audience data than broadcast can offer. But even as streaming's audience share has grown to justify substantial migration of CTV ad dollars from broadcast to digital, when it comes to quantifying audiences and measuring engagement, the lack of consistent and easily translatable measurement standards—not to mention the sheer number of measurement options—continues to frustrate ad buyers. How can streaming move toward the proposed "single source of truth," or is that even the answer? Confirmed panelists include experts from Vevo, Warner Bros Discovery, and Revry.