It also includes free ad-supported services like The Roku Channel, Tubi, IMDb TV, and Pluto TV. This forecast is defined as individuals of any age who watch videos on an ad-supported platform featuring professionally produced content at least once per month.

Whereas our free streaming estimate is restricted to free services like The Roku Channel, Tubi, IMDb TV, and Pluto TV. Half of all digital video viewers will use AVOD services this year, up from 44.2% in 2020. Its growth rate will shrink as AVODs’ user base expands, but we still expect a lot of upside in this area with AVOD reaching 164.0 million people in 2025. .

Although a growing percentage of ad spending around TV content is happening through addressable, programmatic, and connected TV channels, making advertising more accountable, holistic campaign metrics that cut across the linear and digital domains remain elusive.

It also includes free ad-supported services like The Roku Channel, Tubi, IMDb TV, and Pluto TV. We define AVOD viewers as individuals of any age who watch videos on an ad-supported platform featuring professionally produced content at least once per month.

Lastly, following its acquisition of the Quibi and “This Old House” libraries, Roku signed an exclusive deal with Saban Films to stream its movies on The Roku Channel three months after they appear in theaters. These moves show that, for a growing number of streaming services, original content production is becoming essential. Read Next.

The service was not initially available on Roku and Amazon Fire TV, the two most popular connected TV (CTV) viewing platforms. These days, HBO Max is widely available, including on Roku and Fire TV. And now that HBO Max has been out for more than a year, we also have clearer numbers from the company about how well the service is doing at adding subscribers.

After mobile streaming app Quibi fell apart, Roku acquired exclusive global distribution rights to Quibi’s programs in January. Previously, Roku’s streaming service, The Roku Channel, was entirely made up of licensed shows, many of which it didn’t have exclusivity over. Adding Quibi’s shows gave The Roku Channel a quick burst of unique programming.

Meanwhile, Roku, another streaming company born directly from digital, is outperforming our previous expectations. The platform will net $1.58 billion in 2021 US ad revenues, up 92% from last year. An emerging growth area for Roku is the Roku Channel, its ad-supported channel that holds an increasing amount of content, including Quibi's bite-sized originals.

And it will also take a more generous cut of the ad revenues that run on nonpartner channels than it does on partner channels, where publishers generally receive 55% of the ad revenues associated with their YouTube videos. This means that ad inventory will be lower quality than what appears on YouTube Partner Program channels. On the bright side, it will likely be cheaper.

Roku is helping Shopify merchants deploy CTV ad campaigns: The move will increase the total addressable market of Roku’s ad platform, while also increasing accessibility for SMBs.

During a year where investments in most advertising channels shrunk or stalled, connected TV ad spending is poised to keep growing.

In a move mirroring Amazon’s video strategy, Apple is trying to use its new streaming service to bring more people into Apple TV channels, a feature that lets users subscribe to streaming services from within the Apple TV app. Like Prime Video channels, Apple TV channels allows Apple to profit from aggregating streaming services into a single user interface and bill.

Nielsen also sold its advanced video advertising business to Roku. As part of the deal, Roku will receive Nielsen’s automatic content recognition (ACR) data and Nielsen will be allowed to incorporate viewing data from Roku into Nielsen’s measurement products. Nine TV networks in the consortium Project OAR began testing its technology to expand the amount of addressable inventory they sell.

“Roku Recommends” rolls out: The new show from Roku’s branded content studio surfaces top streaming content and gives advertisers a chance to reach viewers who might otherwise skip straight to ad-free services.

The launch of new ad-supported streamers like Peacock and Quibi (which ultimately sold Roku the exclusive global distribution rights to its content library for The Roku Channel, another big AVOD player). Since the Nielsen data was gathered, several more platforms have released, or announced plans to release, ad-supported tiers, including HBO Max, Discovery+, and Paramount+.

Another similarity to Amazon’s video strategy is that Apple is trying to use its new streaming service to bring more people into Apple TV channels. Like Amazon Prime Video channels, Apple TV channels allow the company to profit from aggregating streaming services into a single user interface and bill.

Other free ad-supported services like Xumo, The Roku Channel and Pluto TV are beefing up their content licensing. In April, Viacom announced that it would add content from 15 of its TV channels to Pluto TV. Viacom purchased Pluto TV in January 2019 for a reported $340 million.