Growth rapidly deteriorated across ecommerce, advertising, social, consumer tech, time spent with media, and a whole range of other metrics in 2022—and 2023 isn’t shaping up to be much better. So, where’s the good news? Our report compiles a handful of silver linings and hidden gems that might have been lost in the gloom and doom. As it turns out, some digital economy metrics are still flying high.

CTV Ad Spending Growth Will More Than Double Overall Digital Growth

Ad spending growth has come back to earth in the US, but not for connected TV (CTV). Total media ad spending will increase by just 7.0% this year, while digital spending will increase by 12.0%. CTV, meanwhile, will cruise along with 27.2% growth, a figure reminiscent of the good old days of boomtime ad spending.

Ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) are driving the increases, but the field is crowded. CTV broadly, and subscription over-the-top (sub OTT) specifically, are doing extremely well, but life is tough for individual players because the competition is so fierce.

• Dozens of service providers will vie for a slice of this year’s $26.92 billion in spending. The largest shares will go to Hulu (13.8%), YouTube (11.7%), and Roku (9.5%), but the long tail of “other” will dominate with 42.1% of the pie.
• Sub OTT CTV ad spending will increase 49.6% this year—thanks largely to newcomers Disney+ and Netflix—for a total of $8.04 billion. But this figure will also be divided into numerous small slices by the many SVODs that have ad tiers.

To see the full forecast, click here.