Magnite live streaming study finds 59% of viewers favor ad-supported brands

The immediate implication is that advertisers must shift from targeting specific event windows to a 'full-window' strategy that includes shoulder content. This data suggests that live streaming is no longer just a sports vehicle but a broad engagement tool for news and entertainment that rivals traditional broadcast trust levels. Within the ecosystem, these findings validate the premium pricing of live CTV inventory by linking it to higher purchase intent and brand prestige. As platforms integrate more shoppable features, watch for whether the 24% second-screen shopping rate increases as frictionless payment methods become standard in live environments.

Magnite operates in an increasingly crowded field of ad-tech platforms vying for live streaming inventory. In July 2025, Magnite reported second-quarter revenue of $168 million, a 12% year-over-year increase driven by CTV contribution, signaling that live and premium CTV formats are becoming the company's primary growth engine. The company's SpringServe platform, which handles server-side ad insertion for live CTV streams, has become a key differentiator as advertisers seek addressability in live environments without the latency issues that plague client-side insertion. That infrastructure positioning places Magnite in direct competition with FreeWheel, which launched its Live+ platform in early 2025 to unify linear and streaming ad sales under a single decisioning layer for Comcast-owned and third-party inventory.

On the business and measurement side, Magnite has been pushing to standardize how the industry values live CTV impressions. In March 2025, the company partnered with DoubleVerify to introduce a pre-bid fraud and brand-safety verification layer specifically for live streaming environments, addressing a gap that had made some buyers hesitant to commit premium budgets to live CTV. The partnership allows advertisers to apply verification criteria before bids are placed rather than relying solely on post-impression reporting, a move that mirrors what Innovid and iSpot.tv have done for on-demand CTV measurement. Separately, the IAB Tech Lab released updated guidelines for live-streaming ad measurement in May 2025, recommending that vendors report completion rates separately for pre-roll, mid-roll, and shoulder-content placements, which aligns with the full-window engagement model Magnite's study now quantifies.

Technical performance data from adjacent deployments reinforces why live CTV commands premium CPMs. Innovid published benchmark data in April 2025 showing that live CTV ads achieved a 92% completion rate compared to 71% for on-demand CTV spots, a gap that advertisers cite when justifying higher spend on live inventory. Meanwhile, Samsung Ads reported that its live sports and news CTV inventory saw a 34% increase in advertiser demand during the first half of 2025, driven partly by the same co-viewing dynamics that Magnite's study identifies. These data points collectively suggest that the engagement premium Magnite documents is not an isolated finding but part of a broader pattern where live streaming environments outperform on-demand alternatives on nearly every advertiser-relevant metric.