Streaming to overtake linear reach by 2025 and ad spend by 2028

The speed of television’s disruption is significantly outpacing the historical decline of radio and newspapers, leaving broadcasters with a tightening window of roughly three to four years before current economic models shift permanently. While local news and live sports remain primary assets, the industry’s fragmented response—characterized by siloed tech stacks and individual identity graphs—creates buying complexity that drives advertisers toward streamlined platforms like YouTube and CTV. To survive the 2028 spending flip, broadcasters must move beyond simple cost-cutting and consolidation toward industry-wide collaboration on measurement and attribution standards. Failure to establish a unified buying interface risks relegating local TV to the same fate as legacy print and radio.

The urgency for broadcast transformation coincides with a massive wave of industry consolidation following recent regulatory shifts. In March 2026, per Substack and BIA, the FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, effectively waiving the long-standing 39% national audience reach cap. This move signaled a period of deregulated M&A as broadcasters seek the scale necessary to compete with global tech giants like YouTube and Netflix. Sinclair and Gray Media have also pursued aggressive station swaps and acquisitions, arguing in FCC filings from August 2025 that the existing ownership rules were an "emergency" threat to survival given that streaming viewing share hit 46% by mid-2025.

Despite the reach transition, linear TV continues to maintain a lead in specific ad-supported metrics. Per Mediapost and TVB reporting from June 2025, linear television still commanded 55.1% of viewing share among ad-supported platforms, compared to 41.1% for streaming. This data suggests that while total viewing is shifting toward digital, the migration of ad-supported audiences is moving at a different pace. Local broadcasters are attempting to bridge this gap through initiatives like the Television Bureau of Advertising's (TVB) Linear Trading Platform, which aims to make buying local broadcast as seamless as programmatic digital buys. However, according to BIA Advisory Services, total local TV-based ad revenue is still projected to fluctuate significantly between political cycles, with non-political "core" revenue rising only 3.6% in 2025.