The medium screen: New data on ad impressions shows that more YouTube viewing is happening on TVs, suggesting the platform will soon become an increasingly popular place to reallocate TV ad dollars.

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 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.

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

CTV ad spending will increase from $13.41 billion in 2021 to $27.47 billion in 2025, when it will account for nearly 30% of total TV ad spend. The opportunity: NBCUniversal’s main edge is its scale and credibility.

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.

How will TV ad spending fare in a post-pandemic world? We do not expect TV outlays to bounce back to their pre-pandemic levels over the remainder of the forecast period in five of the six markets we cover. Chile is the only exception, where we project that TV ad spending will return to 2019 spending levels by the end of 2022.

Overall, traditional TV companies reported a successful upfront season, in line with our estimate that US upfront TV ad spending will rebound from its 3.5% drop in 2020, growing by 7.6% this year to pull in $19.90 billion. Notably, most of that growth will be driven by upfront digital video spending, which will rise by 42.5% this year.