Streaming TV has crossed a defining threshold. The channel has moved from experimental to essential. In May 2025, Nielsen reported that Streaming TV captured 44.8% of all TV usage, surpassing cable and broadcast combined for the first time. Advertisers are following audience migration fast: 58% of total TV budgets now flow to digital TV, and our own research with the WFA found 68% of marketers plan to increase Streaming TV investment this year.
A familiar pattern
This rapid scaling should feel familiar. The early days of programmatic advertising followed a similar trajectory: investment grew faster than best practices were implemented. Without rigorous governance, that gap led to significant wastage and missed opportunities to maximize returns.
As James McCann, Director of Advanced TV at Ebiquity, explains: “The time to address Streaming TV challenges is now, before substantial budgets are irreversibly committed. As with digital advertising a decade ago, periods of major budget shifts can attract inefficiencies. Establishing proper governance early prevents embedding wasteful practices and ensures sustainable growth as investments increase.”
The lesson from programmatic is clear. Channels that scale without governance frameworks become costly. But learning from history means we can avoid repeating it and embrace the opportunity presented by the new TV landscape.
The opportunity that governance protects
Linear TV has been the effectiveness powerhouse of media plans, delivering a long-term ROI of 5.94 and contributing 46.6% of total profit volume. In some analyses, it drives as much as 84% of sales volume attributed to media channels.
As Linear declines with shifting audiences, Streaming TV must fill that gap to maintain total TV’s contribution to business growth. This is the real opportunity: preserving TV’s effectiveness legacy while following audiences to new environments.
We believe that Streaming TV can deliver on this effectiveness challenge and that the new ‘Total TV’ landscape offers advertisers with great opportunity. The advertisers that harness this opportunity will manage the strategic balance between maintaining quality whilst controlling costs.
Get the investment right, and Streaming can maintain TV’s proven effectiveness. Get it wrong, and you pay premium prices without premium outcomes.
Understanding the economics
We estimate, that on a cost per all adult impression, Streaming TV must work approximately 4x harder than Linear TV to match ROI.
This isn’t a reason to avoid Streaming. Instead, it is a demand that we are rigorous about how budgets are deployed. Higher cost per adult impression demands quality impressions and tighter governance.
The question becomes: how do you ensure your premium investment delivers premium results?
Governance as the unlock
Because Streaming inventory is fragmented and can cost more than Linear, governance is the difference between premium investment and expensive waste.
Effective governance ensures your higher CPMs buy genuinely premium inventory, reach actual TV screens, deliver during active viewing hours, and maximize attention.
Four components form the foundation: strategic budget allocation that prioritizes quality over volume, transparency across inventory layers to understand what you’re actually buying, market-specific framework development that accounts for regional variations, and rigorous ad verification and measurement.
Together, these elements protect the effectiveness that made TV the powerhouse channel it has been, even as the delivery mechanism evolves.
Making it work
Streaming TV’s growth is inevitable, and its potential is genuine. The difference between brands that maximize ROI and those that struggle comes down to governance implemented early and maintained rigorously.
Analysis of over $1bn in Streaming TV investment has identified three specific pitfalls actively eroding value across the market, and the framework for avoiding them. One automotive brand used this approach to identify £79m in misaligned spend and achieve a 25% optimization improvement.
The path to maintaining TV’s effectiveness in the streaming era is clear. It just requires the discipline to protect your investment as you scale.
Download the full whitepaper to discover the three costly pitfalls eroding Streaming TV effectiveness and the governance framework needed to prevent it.
