The news: 86% of US media planners would push more budget from linear TV to connected TV (CTV) if targeting at the show level were available, per Gracenote’s 2026 CTV Advertising Survey.

• Among top barriers to spending more on CTV, 47% listed limited show- and content-level data, second only to insufficient measurement and attribution (49%).
• Within this kind of metadata, 49% want information on the show genre, category, and publisher or streaming app, and 45% want information on specific show titles and content mood and sentiment.

More than one-third (35%) have already moved 20% or more of their linear spending to CTV over the past two years, and 44% plan a significant shift over the next two years.

The bigger picture: CTV offers a wealth of advantages over linear, including greater potential for audience targeting and flexibility, but the lack of content metadata means marketers don’t have clear signals about what their ads are running against. Without that information, many advertisers still lack the programming-level transparency they’re used to in TV buying.

This absence of content-level information could also lead to worries about brand safety, which 43% of planners cite as their top CTV ad spending barrier.

What it means: Streaming platforms and ad sellers need to prioritize richer content metadata and more granular targeting tools if they want to accelerate linear budget migration.

• Advertisers expect the same contextual signals they’ve relied on in traditional TV buying, alongside digital-style measurement and automation.
• Platforms that can offer data at scale and show-level transparency could be better positioned to capture incremental TV ad dollars.

Implications for platforms: Content adjacency planning is becoming a key differentiator in CTV buying, and the next phase of competition for CTV ad dollars may hinge on how effectively platforms can offer inventory with actionable contextual data.

Data quality and transparency will likely determine how quickly budgets follow audiences, meaning metadata could become as valuable to CTV platforms as inventory itself. Earning ad budgets could depend on replicating the contextual confidence marketers had in linear TV.

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