TV ad spending in the US reached its highest point ever in 2018, a year that featured the Winter Olympics and a midterm congressional election—except no one realized it was a peak at the time. Linear TV had been stagnating for several years, though in early March 2020, the combo of the Summer Olympics and a big presidential campaign season looked set to generate a record $72.00 billion in US TV ad spending that year.

The pandemic led to lower TV ad spend and increased connected TV viewing this year. The shift in TV viewing means TV audience measurement gaps must be addressed to keep pace with how, what, and where consumers are watching TV.

TV ad spending takes a hit as marketers adjust their budgets amid a recession.

Our upfront TV ad spending forecast includes TV ad spending resulting from the national primetime TV upfronts. This includes linear and digital inventory that broadcast networks and cable channels sell during the upfronts but excludes upfront commitments that don’t ultimately result in a transaction.

TV ad spending actually declined in 2020, by 13.2%. Like radio, the lack of major sporting events hit the format quite hard. In addition, our estimates for TV ad spend consider only placements in live broadcast environments, with all broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) included in the digital video portion of spending.

We expect TV ad spending to bounce back this year, which will help outlays on US linear addressable TV ads increase by 33.1% to $2.85 billion. By the end of our forecast period in 2023, linear addressable TV ad spending will surpass $4 billion annually. We define linear addressable TV as targeted TV ads delivered on a home-by-home basis via cable and satellite boxes.

US TV ad spending is now expected to decline by 15.0% this year to reach $60 billion, down from $70.59 billion in 2019.