Addressable TV investment climbs 15.5% as UK ad spend hits £11.7B

The decoupling of addressable TV from broader linear stagnation signals a permanent shift toward targeted, data-driven inventory in the UK. For the streaming ecosystem, this confirms that advertiser demand is migrating toward sophisticated VOD and CTV environments rather than traditional broadcast spots. As major services like Netflix and Disney+ scale their ad-supported tiers they are capturing the high-growth portion of the television market. Watch for the 2026 year-end addressable TV figures to see if growth exceeds the current 13.6% annual forecast as ad-supported subscriber penetration surpasses ad-free tiers.

The surge in addressable TV investment aligns with major structural changes in the UK media sales landscape. In Q2 2026, Sky, Channel 4, and ITV announced a joint advertising marketplace powered by Comcast’s Universal Ads technology (per Comcast Advertising, June 2026). This platform specifically targets small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), allowing them to purchase addressable inventory across all three broadcasters via a single interface, effectively lowering the entry barrier for TV advertising.

Consolidation is further reshaping the competitive field. Per Digiday (July 2026), Sky is moving toward a £1.6 billion acquisition of ITV’s Media & Entertainment business. If approved, the combined entity would control approximately 44% of total UK television advertising revenue. This scale is intended to counter the rise of global streamers; Netflix’s ad-supported tier reached 7.2 million UK homes by Q1 2026, a 50% year-on-year increase, according to Barb data published in May 2026.

Retail media is also emerging as a primary rival for addressable budgets. UK digital retail media spend is projected to hit £7.88 billion by the end of 2026, nearly a sixfold increase since 2019, according to IAB UK and WARC data (July 2025). As retailers like Tesco and Sainsbury’s integrate their first-party data with connected TV platforms, streaming services face intense pressure to prove equivalent attribution capabilities to maintain their share of local media budgets.