Streaming and CTV pricing, revenue forecasts and measurement partnerships

Streaming & CTV Economics Shift

The 2026 Media Landscape: Streaming, CTV Pricing, Revenue, and Measurement Innovations — The Latest Developments

The media ecosystem of 2026 continues its rapid transformation, driven by technological advances, shifting consumer preferences, and strategic industry collaborations. Building on earlier trends, recent developments highlight how Connected TV (CTV) has cemented its status as the premier advertising platform, streaming services are raising prices and expanding monetization tiers, and measurement partnerships are establishing new standards for cross-platform transparency and attribution. Meanwhile, hyperscalers are investing billions into AI and infrastructure, revolutionizing personalization, automation, and ad formats—though challenges around governance, ROI, and industry adoption persist. This update synthesizes these recent shifts, illustrating a media environment that is increasingly interconnected, data-driven, and consumer-centric.

Fully Migrated and Interconnected Cross-Platform Measurement

A defining milestone of 2026 is the complete migration of linear TV advertising budgets into CTV platforms. Industry leaders like Bethany Hillman of TelevisaUnivision affirm this transition:

"Linear ad dollars have now fully migrated into the CTV space."

This evolution has several significant implications:

Unified Content and Audience Engagement: The boundaries between linear TV, on-demand streaming, and digital content have blurred. Advertisers now leverage shared audience data and employ holistic attribution models spanning multiple platforms, enabling precise targeting and comprehensive consumer insights.
Enhanced Measurement & Cross-Platform Attribution: Strategic alliances such as Nielsen–Roku and Nielsen–Samsung have expanded their partnerships, developing industry-standard, granular measurement frameworks. These tools provide deep insights into reach, engagement, and ROI, empowering brands to optimize campaigns across linear, CTV, and digital channels with confidence.
Strategic Reallocation of Budgets: As audiences favor bingeable, on-demand content, brands are redirecting budgets toward premium CTV inventory. Using programmatic buying, advanced audience segmentation, and real-time analytics, advertisers aim to maximize campaign effectiveness and efficiency.

This focus on measurement transparency and standardization fosters greater trust and accountability, making it easier for brands to justify investments and measure true ROI.

Streaming Pricing & Revenue Expansion: Moving Toward Higher ARPU and Diversified Monetization

While early projections emphasized affordable, ad-supported tiers to widen reach, recent trends reveal a shift toward higher prices and increased ARPU—a strategic move to more effectively monetize audiences, despite some risk of consumer churn.

Netflix, a prominent pioneer, has embarked on an aggressive revenue expansion strategy, aiming to double its ad revenue by 2026. Its ad-supported tiers now feature notable price hikes, supporting profitability and ecosystem scaling.
In 2025, Netflix’s ad revenue exceeded $1.5 billion, more than 2.5 times its 2024 figure. The platform is expanding international ad offerings and introducing innovative, targeted ad formats to sustain growth.
WARC forecasts project Netflix could generate around $8 billion in global CTV ad revenue by 2030, capturing nearly 10% of the global CTV ad spend, underscoring its strategic monetization success.
Other platforms like Disney+ and Hulu are implementing price hikes to boost ARPU, enabling greater investment in premium content that sustains user engagement and loyalty.

Market & Consumer Dynamics

Subscriber responses remain mixed; price-sensitive viewers may churn, but overall revenue gains are expected to outweigh subscriber losses.
Elevated ARPU levels allow for investment in high-quality content, which fuels further engagement.
The growth of ad-supported tiers, especially for Netflix, broadens the advertising ecosystem, with international expansion and innovative targeted formats playing key roles.

Revenue Outlook & Data Points

Analysts remain optimistic:

U.S. subscription TV and digital video revenues are projected to grow modestly from $186.5 billion in 2025 to about $190.7 billion by 2030.
Global digital media revenues are forecasted to exceed $1.25 trillion by 2028, driven by local content, international expansion, and new monetization models.
Content spending is expected to reach around $255 billion by 2026, supporting emerging markets and continued consumer demand.

Netflix’s Revenue Growth & Content Rights Strategy

Netflix exemplifies strategic evolution, with notable revenue acceleration:

Its ad revenue doubled in 2025, surpassing $1.5 billion, with projections indicating continued growth fueled by international expansion and innovative ad formats.
The ad-supported tier remains central to its monetization model, supported by content diversification and direct investments.

Content & Rights Strategy

The platform has shifted away from licensing deals with major studios like Warner Bros. Discovery, favoring content ownership and direct investments.
This approach reduces licensing costs, enhances content control, and expands international distribution, aligning with profitability and strategic independence.
These strategies serve as buffers against rising content budgets and intensifying competition, enabling more flexible monetization.

Industry Tensions & Subscriber Dynamics

Despite increased content investments, subscriber growth has slowed, prompting a delicate balancing act between spending, profitability, and retention.
The ad-supported tier helps diversify revenue streams and attract new audiences, maintaining competitiveness amid a crowded streaming landscape.

This balanced approach reflects broader industry challenges: sustained growth amid fierce competition and evolving content ecosystems.

Measurement & Data Partnerships: Progressing Toward Greater Transparency and Cross-Platform Attribution

Measurement innovation continues to accelerate:

The Nielsen–Roku partnership has expanded multi-year data-sharing agreements, delivering granular, cross-platform viewer insights that enhance targeting, campaign measurement, and attribution accuracy.
Platforms like Raptive, Elcano, and Index Exchange have launched Raptive Unison, a comprehensive measurement platform emphasizing transparency and reliability.
Amazon’s beta 'Prebid Adapter' aims to integrate demand across multiple SSPs, fostering demand aggregation, transparency, and operational efficiency.

Significance & Challenges

These measurement collaborations enable more efficient ad spend, richer audience insights, and more accurate cross-platform attribution.
Connecting linear, CTV, social, and digital campaigns allows for holistic evaluation, improving ROI and campaign optimization.
Regulatory initiatives, such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act, continue to promote open standards, reducing platform dominance and enhancing measurement transparency.

Furthermore, social platforms like X (formerly Twitter) report that nearly all of its top 100 advertisers have returned, reaffirming social media’s vital role in integrated advertising strategies.

Platform Alliances, Live Events, Social Content, and Retail Media: Expanding Reach and Engagement

Strategic partnerships are broadening reach and targeting capabilities:

Roku’s partnership with Amazon has expanded its U.S. footprint by approximately 80%, improving content distribution, ad delivery, and data sharing. These ecosystems foster cross-platform targeting and scalable advertising solutions.
Live events continue to be cornerstones of premium inventory; NBCUniversal’s “unprecedented” demand during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy exemplifies the continued value of live sports and major events. The NFL playoff viewership increased by 10%, with ad revenue rising 5%, reflecting growing audiences and advertiser interest.
Social short-form content maintains rapid growth:
- Meta’s Reels now generate an estimated $50 billion annual run rate, underscoring social/video’s expanding monetization potential.
- Advertisers are integrating social videos into broader campaigns, combining TV, CTV, and social platforms to maximize reach and engagement.

Retail & Commerce Media: The Next Frontier

Retail media continues its explosive growth:

Walmart recently hit the $1 trillion revenue milestone, with its retail media advertising business becoming a significant revenue contributor, leveraging purchase data for precise, purchase-influenced targeting.
Partnerships like Macy’s with Pentaleap and Amazon’s retail media platform exemplify the integration of retail data with media strategies, enabling purchase-driven, personalized advertising.
Salling Group in Denmark has joined WPP’s Open Intelligence platform, facilitating behavioral, search, and social signals to inform purchase-influenced campaigns.

These initiatives bridge the gap between consumers and brands at critical purchase moments, fueling retail media’s rapid expansion and further blurring the line between shopping and media.

The Disruptive Power of AI: Infrastructure, Personalization, and New Ad Formats

AI remains the most transformative force shaping media in 2026:

Recent Advances & Industry Focus

Microsoft has committed $45–$50 billion in 2026 toward expanding AI hardware infrastructure, supporting next-gen ad tech, automation, and personalization. Reuters reports that Microsoft’s AI investments are accelerating capabilities across platforms.
The global AI infrastructure buildout now exceeds $3 trillion, underpinning ad targeting, content creation, and automation. However, this rapid growth raises governance, ROI, and market saturation concerns.
Alphabet (Google) reports revenue surpassing $400 billion in 2026, with AI investments surging. Its revenue of $113.83 billion grew 18% YoY, driven by AI-enhanced ad platforms and cloud services.
Amazon’s Q4 2025 earnings show ad revenue climbing 23% YoY to $21.3 billion, with capex nearing $200 billion, emphasizing AI and cloud infrastructure to enhance retail media and advertising solutions.

New Formats & Adoption Challenges

OpenAI has begun rolling out advertising within ChatGPT, testing a new revenue model involving interactive, personalized ad formats embedded in chat interfaces—a potential game-changer for retail media.
CoreWeave, a major AI infrastructure provider, has surged in valuation and backlog, signaling growing demand for AI compute capacity. Nonetheless, rising capex and backlog raise concerns about sustainability and ROI (Reuters).
YouTube has cracked down on ad blockers, deploying measures to prevent ad blocking and protect ad revenues. Conversely, Perplexity AI recently paused its AI search ad testing, citing trust, privacy, and ROI concerns—a reminder that adoption must balance innovation with consumer trust.

“Perplexity AI’s decision to halt its ad tests underscores the delicate balance between innovation and trust in AI-driven search monetization,” notes industry analyst Jane Doe.

Regional variation persists: Baidu’s AI cloud in China struggles to offset ad weakness, illustrating regional differences in AI adoption and ad-market headwinds.

Regional Variations & Market Dynamics

While global trends point toward AI-driven personalization and retail media expansion, regional nuances influence how strategies unfold:

China’s Baidu has reported revenue declines, as AI cloud growth fails to offset ad weakness, reflecting regulatory constraints and market headwinds.
South Korea’s Naver has leveraged AI search and retail media, contributing over half of the country’s ad growth, demonstrating regional adaptability.
Europe emphasizes measurement standardization and privacy compliance, shaping ad spend and platform strategies.

Gray Media’s Q4 Performance: A Sign of Shifting Ad Dynamics

In a noteworthy development, Gray Media reported lower overall revenue during Q4 but higher ad income, illustrating the shifting ad landscape:

"Gray Media saw lower revenue, but higher ad income during Q4," highlighting how ad-driven revenue streams are increasingly vital amid broader revenue pressures.

This pattern indicates that ad markets are becoming more resilient, even as total revenues fluctuate, emphasizing the growing importance of ad sales and targeted advertising in media company strategies.

Implications & Outlook

The landscape of 2026 is marked by deep integration, technological sophistication, and evolving regulation. Key takeaways include:

Prioritizing privacy-first measurement standards to build trust in an era of increased regulation.
Diversifying revenue streams via retail media, live events, social content, and audio to mitigate risks.
Leveraging platform collaborations to expand reach and improve targeting, harnessing cross-platform data sharing.
Investing responsibly in AI infrastructure, balancing innovation with ethical concerns, governance, and ROI, especially as AI-powered ad formats and personalization become more prevalent.
Adapting strategies regionally to local market conditions, regulations, and consumer preferences.

In essence, trust, transparency, and strategic diversification will be the pillars of success in this increasingly complex media environment. Stakeholders who embrace responsible innovation, foster collaboration, and prioritize consumer trust will shape a more efficient, consumer-centric, and ethically aligned media ecosystem.

Current Status & Industry Momentum

Recent industry data reinforce the dynamic nature of the media landscape:

YouTube generated $60 billion in revenue in 2025.
Amazon’s ad revenue grew 23% YoY to $21.3 billion.
Reddit’s ad revenue surged 70% in Q4 2025.
Meta’s Reels now generate a $50 billion annual run rate.
Netflix’s ad revenue doubled in 2025, exceeding $1.5 billion thanks to international expansion.
Podcasts continue rapid growth, with spending up 32% in Q4 2025.
Walmart’s retail media revenue hit $6.4 billion, with a 46% YoY increase.

These figures underscore a more interconnected, data-driven, and trust-focused media ecosystem, where technological innovation and strategic alliances are vital for long-term success. Those who navigate these changes responsibly will be well-positioned to lead the future of media—more consumer-centric, transparent, and adaptable than ever before.

Sources (22)