U.S. CTV ad spend hits $28 billion as linear-digital unification scales

The rapid migration to streaming has outpaced the development of standard measurement tools, creating a 'measurement gap' that risks over-frequency and wasted spend. For the streaming ecosystem, this necessitates a shift away from transient signals toward durable identity cores—such as household addresses and first-party emails—integrated through clean rooms. As advertisers chase the $28 billion CTV market, the ability to 'close the loop' on the big screen will separate premium publishers from fragmented long-tail inventory. Watch for the standardization of identity resolution across major DSPs to determine if unified reach can finally match linear TV's historical scale.

The push for unified measurement comes as CTV continues to cannibalize legacy budgets. Per IAB and eMarketer data from mid-2025, digital video is expected to account for 58% of total U.S. video ad spending this year, while linear TV’s share of total subscription revenue fell below 50% for the first time in 2024. This structural shift is driving a surge in data clean room adoption. According to VideoAmp reporting in July 2025, clean rooms have transitioned from experimental pilots to mission-critical infrastructure, allowing broadcasters like Fox and NBCUniversal to securely match first-party viewer data with advertiser datasets without exposing personally identifiable information.

Simultaneously, the smart TV hardware market is solidifying around a few dominant operating systems that control the glass-level data. Samsung Ads reported in March 2025 that smart TVs are now present in 83% of U.S. television households, with Samsung holding a market-leading 32% share of all installed sets. This hardware dominance provides crucial automatic content recognition (ACR) data, which is being used to bridge the gap between linear and digital viewing. Samsung recently expanded this ecosystem by integrating mobile app usage data to provide a deterministic view of 'second screening' behavior.

Consolidation is also accelerating within the buying platforms. In January 2025, Comcast Advertising launched 'Universal Ads,' a cross-industry collaboration including Fox, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Per Comcast’s announcement, the initiative aims to democratize TV advertising for small businesses by offering a self-service buying tool and AI-driven creative production. This move reflects a broader industry effort to make premium TV inventory as accessible and measurable as social media, targeting the 89% of performance advertisers who expressed willingness to test TV if ROI measurement improved.