Big streamers ad cash dips despite billion-dollar haul

New data from ad intelligence platform MediaRadar shows the top six ad-supported streaming services collectively garnered over $1 billion in ad spend during the first 10 months of the year – but that figure represents an 8% year over year decline from the same time last year.

MediaRadar analyzed U.S. ad spend from the following six OTT ad-supported streaming services from January 1, 2022 through October 31, 2023: Warner Bros. Discovery’s Discovery+ and Max, Disney’s Hulu, Paramount Global’s Paramount+ and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service Pluto TV, and NBCUniversal’s Peacock. From January to October 2023 advertisers invested nearly $1.07 billion in those six platforms – marking an 8% year over year decline from the $1.2 billion spent over the same period in 2022.

MediaRadar identifies the top six services based on ad spend, and Netflix and Disney+ – which are relative newcomers to the ad-supported game – were not tracked, nor were Fox’s Tubi or The Roku Channel FAST services. Smart TV players with ad-supported streaming services like Samsung, Vizio and LG also weren’t included in the analysis. StreamTv Insider