Cadent President Doug Rozen urges unified 'total video' buying strategies

The persistence of over-frequency in CTV is a direct result of fragmented demand sources that do not share data. By pushing for a 'total video' strategy, Cadent aims to move the industry toward cross-platform orchestration that treats YouTube and linear as a single reach curve. This shift would force a reorganization of agency search and programmatic teams which currently buy video in isolation. If successful, this architectural pivot could reduce viewer fatigue and improve premium content value. Watch for whether major DSPs adopt unified frequency caps across walled gardens and open exchanges in late 2026.

The push for unified buying arrives as the CTV market faces massive growth alongside deepening fragmentation challenges. Per EMARKETER in December 2025, U.S. CTV ad spend is projected to reach $38 billion in 2026, surpassing traditional TV upfront spending for the first time. However, an Advertiser Perceptions survey from March 2026 found that one-third of advertisers still cite challenges with deduplicated reach and cross-provider planning as the biggest barriers to scaling their investments. This mismatch between record spending and operational inefficiency has led to visible consumer fatigue; per Android Authority in July 2026, YouTube users have increasingly reported unskippable ad blocks lasting nearly 10 minutes and interruptions occurring every three to four minutes.

In response, major tech players are attempting to bridge these walled gardens to offer the 'unified' experience Rozen advocates. Per Tinuiti in July 2025, Roku and Amazon partnered to create a shared identity space, covering over 80% of the U.S. CTV ecosystem to enable better frequency management across their combined footprints. Simultaneously, the industry is shifting toward attention-based measurement. Per PPC Land in April 2026, companies like TVision and OpenX launched pre-bid attention targeting to address the fact that impression delivery no longer correlates directly with viewer engagement. Antenna noted in June 2026 that while ad-supported tiers now drive 59% of gross subscriber additions, platform retention will increasingly depend on balancing this monetization with the 'persistence' issues noted by Cadent.