Streamers poised to take greater share in US upfront market: Advertising dollars will flow to services such as Hulu, Peacock, Roku, and YouTube TV.

Close to 8 in 10 branding professionals plan on allocating upfront spending to Hulu, per a survey from iSpot.tv. Peacock and YouTube TV are also major upfront spend magnets with 52% and 49% of branding professionals dishing ad dollars to those platforms, respectively.

Amazon’s IMDb TV rebrands to Freevee as ad-supported video gains fans: The name change will highlight the service’s value and may help it better compete with Hulu.

Netflix is practically synonymous with video streaming in the US, with 76% of US teens and adults surveyed using the platform. Amazon Prime Video is the next most popular service, used by 64%, while Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max round out the top five.

Netflix is the top US streaming service when it comes to original content, with 38% of the country’s adults agreeing the platform offers the best selection of original shows and movies. Amazon Prime Video comes in second, trailing by a sizable margin with 11%, while Hulu and HBO Max rank third and fourth.

Hulu raked in $2.1 billion in ad revenues between October 2020 and November 2021, by far the most of any ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) platform in the US.

On today's episode, we discuss some very specific 2022 predictions: Why Amazon is looking to expand into sports media, why TikTok will force YouTube to do something reckless, why Clubhouse might not last the year as a standalone company, how Disney might reposition Hulu, how Apple will re-enter the streaming wars, and more. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Debra Aho Williamson, Paul Verna, and Andrew Lipsman.

As an original co-founder of Hulu and one of its co-owners, Comcast’s NBCUniversal has regularly featured its top shows on Hulu. Yet, with Peacock gaining viewers and Disney eventually taking full ownership of Hulu, there will be fewer incentives for NBCU to place its content on Hulu. In March, NBCU announced new episodes of its shows would premiere on Peacock instead of Hulu as it had in the past.

Premium streaming platforms like Disney+ and Netflix are also pushing into the AVOD space, currently dominated by Hulu in the US. With 41.6% of the population using AVOD services this year and time spent with CTVs and the like approaching 2 hours per day, expect ad dollars to rush into these formats. More like this:. Report: Upfront TV and Digital Video 2022.

It estimated that 8% of HBO Max, 59% of Hulu, 63% of Paramount+, and 72% of Peacock subscribers used ad-supported tiers. Hub Research’s data is survey-based, while Antenna relies on consumers’ transaction data—but they came to similar conclusions.

All the top platforms for streaming in Canada—Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, and Amazon Prime Video—are out of advertiser reach until they introduce ad-supported tiers, as Hulu has in the US. Netflix indicated on its Q1 2022 earnings call that it would introduce an ad-supported tier in the future.

Examples include Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Sling TV, and YouTube Premium. OTT video services are not mutually exclusive; there is overlap between groups. Netflix viewers are individuals of any age who watch Netflix via app or website at least once per month.

In iSpot’s study, nearly four-fifths of respondents planned to allocate upfront dollars toward Hulu. About half planned to spend with Peacock, Roku, and YouTube TV. While we forecast that Roku’s overall CTV ad revenues will exceed Peacock’s, it makes sense that Peacock would be more active in upfront negotiations since it is tethered to one of the largest TV ad sellers in the world.

Among major streaming video platforms, Peacock is the one where US subscribers are most likely to have the ad-supported version. Just 20% of Peacock subscribers shell out for the ad-free tier.

Additionally, most streaming happens on services without ads, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, as well as on the ad-free tiers of Hulu, HBO Max, and Peacock. There is a correlation where the younger a person is, the more likely they are to misjudge the amount of advertising on TV versus streaming platforms.

On a net basis, Hulu generates the most CTV ad revenues among the companies we break out. MediaRadar estimated that in February 2021 media and entertainment advertisers represented more than one-third of all Hulu advertisers, making it the most common advertising category on the service.