It's become a cliché to say that the streaming TV model is "going back to cable," but honestly, the historical parallels couldn't be more ironic if they had been written by a heavyweight playwright.
Advertising on OTT, CTV and linear TV explained
“Is Cable Television Being Overrun by Advertising?” mused a 1981 New York Times headline, about a story that began with the observation: “There is a widespread impression — at least among the public — that cable is financed largely by viewers’ monthly subscription fees. Today, however … cable pundits talk as casually about the potential for advertising revenue as they do about programming opportunities.”
Replace “cable” with “streaming” and almost the exact same paragraph could appear in The Times today, as we enter a year in which connected TV advertising – the advertising category that includes SVOD, AVOD and FAST – is expected to really come into its own.
CTV is expected to be the fastest-growing channel for ad spend in 2024, with global advertising giant Dentsu predicting global spend growth of almost 31% in the category year-on-year. Meanwhile, investment firm GroupM predicts that CTV ad revenue will grow 13.8% in 2024, a bigger annual jump than “pure play” digital ad revenue (which includes retail, search and social media). Revenue will reach $16.6 billion in the US alone this year, according to GroupM’s forecast.
