The news: Online video (OLV), which includes any video content served on desktop, laptop, mobile, or tablet devices, is approaching linear TV’s level of media quality (MQ), according to our industry KPI data provided by Adelaide. MQ is a measurement of an ad placement’s capability of driving an outcome.

Additionally, OLV cut its attention metric (AU) gap—a score that uses MQ signals to estimate how likely it is that a placement will capture attention that drives results—with linear by more than half between Q1 2025 and Q2 2026.

• Linear TV maintained a 52.7% AU in Q1 2025 compared with just 37.6% for OLV. But by Q2 2026, linear TV increased its AU only slightly to 56.2%, while OLV reached 49.7%.
• The data indicates that OLV is becoming a more viable channel for high-quality video advertising.

Zooming out: OLV is increasingly a credible alternative to linear TV for brand-building efforts.

• Research from Dentsu similarly found that OLV and the broader digital video ecosystem can drive multi-year brand-building effects. One video ad exposure is estimated to generate a 1% to 5% increase in sales over the following three years, per the research.
• ARF research found that online video consistently generates higher attention than social media and digital display, landing closer to television than other digital channels.
• OLV’s growing attention quality is occurring at the same time that ad dollars are shifting toward digital video and away from linear. IAB’s 2026 Outlook projected that digital video (excluding CTV) ad spending will rise 9.6% YoY, while linear is projected to decline by 14.4%.

Combined, the findings show that OLV is gaining the quality, effectiveness, and investment needed to strengthen its position in video strategies.

Implications for marketers: As marketers increasingly evaluate video strategies through attention and outcomes over delivery metrics alone, OLV’s performance gains strengthens the case for determining video investments based on the quality and impact of impressions across channels.

Marketers should assess modern video environments and linear TV through comparable attention and outcome measures rather than treating them as fundamentally different channels.

Go deeper: Want more attention metrics benchmarking data? PRO+ subscribers have access to Industry KPIs, our collection of more than 400 benchmarks in marketing and retail and ecommerce across a range of industries and countries. Click here for more information.