The number of US users watching ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) will surpass 140 million in 2022, up 8.6% YoY. In all, we project two-thirds of the US population will watch CTV content in 2022. That figure is about 14 percentage points higher than it was five years ago. We project a 33.1% increase in connected TV (CTV) ad revenues for 2022, to $18.89 billion.

Several forces are driving up costs per thousand on both linear and connected TV. On the linear side, audience levels have dropped at a faster rate than ad spending, so more dollars are chasing fewer viewers.

Advertisers are spending more on connected TV (CTV) given its high adoption rate among US consumers and flexibility compared with linear ads, but concerns about accuracy have re-emerged after a study revealed advertisers are losing $1 billion annually on dead ads.

Total time spent with media per day in the US will decline slightly in 2022, but most pandemic-era gains will be retained. Digital video, subscription OTT services, and smartphones will be among the bigger winners this year.

Among connected TV (CTV) companies we forecast, Hulu will lead in US ad revenues in 2021 at $3.13 billion, up 44% over 2020.

US upfront CTV ad spending will exceed $6 billion this year. For context, that’s about how much we had predicted in our inaugural forecast would be spent on total CTV advertising in 2019. The CTV ad market has grown so much that this year’s upfront spending alone will mirror what was spent on CTV in its entirety three years ago.

We expect the availability of more connected TV (CTV) inventory—including NFL Thursday Night Football rights and the revamped Freevee offering—will help Amazon lure TV ad dollars from both national media and shopper marketing budgets with the enticement of closed-loop performance. What It Means. Despite current challenges, Amazon will recapture ecommerce market share.

Silver was appointed Root’s first CMO in November 2021 “specifically to develop the brand marketing discipline, as well as merge the brand marketing with the digital acquisition team,” he told us.

We also expect strong growth in upfront CTV spending, which is a subset of digital video. Upfront CTV ad spending will account for more than two-thirds of upfront digital video ad spending in 2022. Addressable and Programmatic TV Keep Growing. In May, we updated our forecasts for US linear addressable and linear programmatic TV ad spending.

US advertisers will spend $345.99 billion on media this year, per our forecast, so there’s a lot of money at stake. Formats across linear TV and digital video, which includes connected TV (CTV), will account for $144.55 billion, or about 42% of total ad spending.

By comparison, just 28.5% of all CTV users are under 25 years old. CTV viewers include anyone who watched digital content on a TV screen. OTT viewers include anyone who streamed digital video across all devices. We forecast CTV viewers by age but not OTT viewers by age, which is why streaming service viewers in this section were compared with CTV viewers rather than OTT viewers.

Advertising uncertainty just got worse: A report found that 17% of ads on CTV devices air while TVs are off, costing advertisers $1 billion.

On today's episode, we discuss the current diagnosis of Netflix—are their best days behind them, what will they need to do to keep the competition at bay, and what should we make of the rumored acquisition of Roku. "In Other News," we talk about YouTube making it easier to interact with the app on connected TVs (CTVs) and the prospect of its new frequency-capping solution. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Ross Benes.