Paramount+ is entering a new stage—less about rapid subscriber growth and more about profitability. We forecast US monthly viewers will rise to 103.5 million by 2029, but subscription revenue growth will decelerate to 6.4% by 2026. Advertising, however, is on the upswing, with revenues expected to hit $611.5 million by 2027 as hybrid tiers gain traction. Yet the departure of Taylor Sheridan, the creative force behind Yellowstone and Tulsa King, leaves a gap in Paramount’s prestige pipeline.
Prescription pharmaceuticals accounted for 13.1% of total estimated US linear TV ad spend in Q3 2025, the highest among the top five industries, according to an October report from iSpot.tv.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how WNBA viewership did the year after the ‘Caitlin Clark Effect’ hit the league, what social media will do to full-game viewership growth, and what advertisers should be paying attention to most amidst this surge in women’s sports. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host, Marcus Johnson, and Analysts Marisa Jones and Paola Flores-Marquez. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
Federal prosecutors have charged NBA figures Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones with gambling and fraud conspiracies tied to organized crime, marking the sport’s biggest integrity crisis in years. The case arrives as legal sports betting reaches record scale, with 38 states now allowing wagers and revenues projected to hit $20.6 billion by 2027. Yet as gambling becomes embedded in fan engagement and media strategy, public sentiment is turning—40% of US adults now view legalized betting as bad for sports. For leagues, advertisers, and sportsbooks alike, the scandal is a stress test for an industry built on trust.
68% of US ad spending by microdrama apps went to social networks from January to September 2025, according to US ad spend reports from ReelShort, DramaBox, GoodShort, NetShort, and ShortMax, compiled by Sensor Tower.
YouTube TV could lose access to Disney networks October 30, including ESPN, Disney Channel, and ABC, as Google and Disney enter a deal-renewal standoff. YouTube TV will become an increasingly risky investment for advertisers if a deal is not reached by the deadline, especially as advertisers turn to sports as a key channel to reach vast audiences but struggle with sports rights fragmentation.
The connected TV (CTV) landscape is evolving rapidly from an exclusive channel to a democratized medium that drives action for brands of all sizes. In a conversation with EMARKETER, Mike Laband, group SVP of revenue at Magnite, shared his insights on democratization, how Magnite is investing in innovation, and where CTV ad formats are headed. Marketers who ride the wave of CTV innovation will be best positioned to succeed as the medium becomes heavily saturated with ads.
Spectrum Reach and Waymark are scaling their AI-powered creative partnership, which has already supported over 15,000 ad campaigns for small and midsize businesses. The collaboration blends Spectrum Reach’s data-driven media targeting with Waymark’s AI video creation tools, enabling broadcast-quality commercials in minutes. The expansion comes as 55% of US small businesses now use AI, up from 39% last year. Together, Spectrum Reach and Waymark are redefining local advertising, proving AI can make creative faster, smarter, and fairer.
TikTok is undergoing a sweeping reorganization that consolidates control under ByteDance’s Beijing-based leadership. The company’s global content and distribution teams now report directly to Douyin architect Fiona Zhi, who is closely tied to ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming. The change strengthens central oversight just as the US and China approach a potential TikTok ownership deal—but it also raises questions about governance, transparency, and stability. Advertisers are pausing or shifting spend amid uncertainty over who will run TikTok’s US operations and how its algorithm and data policies will evolve. ByteDance’s move reasserts control—but risks reigniting trust concerns in its largest market.
The NBA is experiencing one of its biggest advertising booms in decades following a record $76 billion media rights deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon. Ad spend on NBA programming jumped 15% last season to $1.52 billion, with NBCUniversal selling out its first-year inventory after returning to coverage for the first time in 23 years. ESPN, ABC, and Prime Video are also thriving—drawing hundreds of advertisers across broadcast and streaming. Amazon is fusing ecommerce and live sports with shoppable ad formats, while NBC and Disney leverage cross-platform studio content. The result: the NBA is redefining what live sports monetization looks like.
Roku maintains its lead in programmatic connected TV (CTV) device advertising in Q3 2025 with 36% share of voice (SOV) in North America. That’s more than twice the share of Apple TV (15%), Amazon Fire TV (14%), and Samsung (13%), per Pixalate. However, Roku’s share has dropped 15 points in two years. Roku is actively working to increase opportunities for advertisers. At the same time, CTV insights remain opaque. To make the most of CTV ad spending, advertisers should diversify across devices, focus on channel-level contextual targeting, and continue investing in linear.
Artificial intelligence is transforming how brands navigate media buying, with digital ad buyers using AI for processes like ad personalization, audience insights, and creative ideation. In a conversation with EMARKETER, Mike Hauptman, CEO of cross-DSP manager AdLib, discussed how AI is altering the media buying landscape. Marketers are operating in a landscape where AI is a necessity—but as challenges are expected to persist for years to come, those who thrive will be the ones who find a happy medium.
TikTok is mandating that sellers buy ads using its new tool, GMV Max, in order to participate in Black Friday and other holiday promotions. At the same time, it is making it harder for sellers to drive sales to platforms outside its system. The company is limiting merchants’ ability to advertise videos linking to their websites and other outside sources. TikTok’s attempts to tie sellers to its platform make sense given parent ByteDance’s ambitious US ecommerce goals—but such efforts will only be successful if TikTok can prove its importance as a sales channel.
Search advertising is entering a new era where Amazon and other retail media players are reshaping how discovery and intent are monetized. Brands must revisit their “search mix.” Google may remain indispensable, but allocating more spend to retail media will future-proof campaigns against cookie loss and capitalize on where shopping intent now begins.
The New York Times is adding a Watch tab to its app Wednesday in an effort to boost engagement and usher in more advertising business. The tab will feature a mix of short-form, swipeable, vertical video content, per Adweek. In early 2026, the publisher plans to open video ad placements within the tab to brands through a beta program, per Axios. As publishers introduce vertical video ad inventory, marketers should rethink their media mix to include premium placements that mirror the engagement of social video—while considering how those ads may appear alongside hard news or opinion content.
Netflix reported a strong Q3 on Tuesday, increasing revenues 17.2% YoY, in line with the forecast issued in Q2. The company stated that it is on track to double its ad revenues in 2025, claiming Q3 was its strongest quarter yet for ad sales—proving that momentum is largely being driven by Netflix’s maturing ad offerings. Marketers can capitalize on audience appetite for ad-supported tiers, but should focus their investment in platforms with proven results as less dominant connected TV (CTV) providers are likely to struggle in Q3 and beyond.
AdsGency, which bills itself as the first agentic operating system for advertisers, is working to unify the entire advertising process in a single ecosystem. Its large language models (LLMs) target the ideal audience, create the ads, and automate the ad-buying process. AdsGency is breaking down siloes and democratizing advertising for smaller teams that don’t have the talent budget of larger companies. But at the same time, it’s taking over for humans and can easily miss the nuance that people can provide. Brands could adopt systems like AdsGency for targeting, placements, and analytics but leave the content to human creatives.
Marketing measurement is entering a new phase of speed and precision. InMarket’s Michael Della Penna told EMARKETER that marketers are moving beyond static reports toward real-time insights—fusing marketing mix modeling (MMM) and multi-touch attribution (MTA) to understand what drives incremental sales as campaigns run. AI-powered models now forecast lift, optimize spend, and connect awareness to conversion through unified platforms. With 56% of marketers prioritizing sales lift and nearly half investing in MMM, the focus is clear: decision speed over dashboards. InMarket’s end-to-end system exemplifies this shift, reframing measurement as a continuous feedback loop rather than a quarterly report.