PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—Even though younger audiences are more likely to be active on multiple platforms, a new study suggests that their tendency to spread their disposable time across more platforms and types of content than any other generation has not reduced their interest in viewing sports.

Hub Entertainment Research's latest wave of “Evolution of Sports – What’s the Score?” finds that sports viewership is up, and it's rising fastest among younger fans.

Fans under age 18 are about seven times more likely to say they're watching more sports on TV than they were a year ago, rather than less, which is more than double the ratio seen among fans overall.

Among teens who say they're watching more, more than 2 in 5 credit a genuine, growing interest in sports overall or in a specific team or athlete.

In contrast, older fans (ages 55-74) are more likely to point to simply having more free time — not rising interest — as the reason for increased viewing.

“One factor driving the success of sports today: younger fans are just more interested than the generation before them,” said Jon Giegengack, principal at Hub and one of the study authors. “But as with scripted content, their fandom is diffused across multiple kinds of media and content. It shows up as a YouTube stream, a group chat during the game, watching live stats on social while the game is on. The industry is built to reach the fan who plans their Sunday around kickoff. Now they need to adapt to fans that watch the game on TV and spend the rest of the week following it everywhere else.”

The research also suggests that they're finding sports through creators and social, not appointment TV and that for younger fans, social platforms aren't a supplement to sports coverage, they're becoming the main event.

The survey found that 45% of fans under 35 get “most” or “all” of their non-live sports content from social media, more than four times the rate among fans 55 and older.

In addition, creators are increasingly carrying the games themselves, not just the highlights: during the FIFA World Cup, a single YouTube channel in Brazil streamed 104 matches — more than twice as many as the country's national broadcaster.

For younger fans, the second screen is part of the game, not a distraction from it, the study found.

With scripted TV, a phone in hand usually means divided attention. Sports works the other way: the second screen is mostly pointed back at the game. And that is far truer of young fans than older ones.

Among fans 13-34 who use social media during a live game, 62% say what they are doing on that second screen is about the game itself. Among fans 55-74, only 33% say the same.

The gap is widest on the most social behaviors: 65% of younger fans posting to social during a game are posting about that game, versus 29% of older fans. Purpose-built tools are game-related for nearly everyone, with 89% of 13-34 and 85% of 55-74 following live stats saying it is about the sport they are watching.

These findings are from Hub's “Evolution of Sports: What’s the Score?” Wave 6 report, based on a survey of 3,814 U.S. sports fans ages 13-74, conducted in July 2026.

LONDON—A new study finds that nearly three in four US TV viewers regularly use their smartphones for other media while watching television. The finding highlights the growing competition for audience attention between TV and mobile video, according to new Omdia consumer research.

The study also found that this isn’t simply an issue for younger age groups. Omdia reports that simultaneous media use is becoming increasingly widespread across older age groups:

• Among 55–64-year-olds, simultaneous media use has risen from 42% in 2023 to 56% in 2026.
• Among 45–54-year-olds, it has increased from 62% to 73% over the same period.
• Among 35–44-year-olds, the direction is also upwards, from 69% to 76% during that time.

The findings highlight how competition for viewers’ attention is extending beyond TV programs and streaming services to the smartphone screen. Short-form video, in particular, is increasingly competing for viewers’ attention even while the television remains on.

“We don’t have a content problem. We have an attention problem,” said María Rúa Aguete, global head of media and entertainment at Omdia. “Three in four US TV viewers are using their phones while watching TV, and increasingly what they are doing is watching more video. The battle is no longer simply TV versus mobile. Both screens are on. The question is: which one has your attention?”

Short-form and vertical video are playing an increasingly significant role in this shift, the data shows.

Viewers are becoming accustomed to highly personalized, instantly accessible video experiences on smartphones, adding another source of competition for traditional television and streaming services.

For broadcasters, streaming platforms, advertisers and content owners, this changing behavior reinforces the need to consider TV and mobile as part of the same viewing experience, as audiences increasingly move their attention between the two, the Omdia researchers explained.

“The future isn’t TV versus mobile. It’s TV and mobile,” added Rúa Aguete. “The companies that understand how audiences move between those screens, and how to capture attention on both, will be best positioned to win.”

The findings are based on Omdia’s latest research into changing video consumption habits, the attention economy and the growth of short-form and vertical video, presented by Rúa Aguete at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam.

VIENNA—In the runup to IBC2026, the 10th annual Video Developer Report from video streaming solution provider Bitmovin highlights some of the major issues facing streaming media that will be top of mind at the show, with live latency and costs ranking as the industry’s top two problems.

The report finds that low latency for live streaming has overtaken controlling costs and is now the number one concern for 36% of respondents, making it the top challenge facing video teams today. This is followed by controlling costs at 35% and maintaining consistent monitoring and analytics at 28%. Finding the root cause of streaming issues and ad insertion are also major challenges for video providers today (both at 27%).

The latest edition of the report also indicates that AI has stopped being an add-on feature and is now deployed across the entire stack, often with agents operating the workflow.

Of the 486 respondents, 98% report using AI or ML for video with nearly half (46%) using AI tools every day. Only 2% report no plans for AI at all, with 4% of respondents not AI tools at all.

Audio transcription, translation and foreign dubbing are the most common applications cited by respondents (48%), followed by content recommendations (34%), visual quality and optimization (30%), and then tagging and categorization, personalization, and scene, shot boundary and ad placement opportunity detection, all come in joint fourth place (28%).

The report also highlights how expectations around low latency have shifted over time as the cost and complexity of delivering low latency has become clear.

In 2020, 60% of respondents expected low latency of less than five seconds, but that's now down to 16%, while 28% expect latency under 10 seconds. That said, sub-second latency still matters in certain use cases such as live sports, betting, auctions and interactive formats. It is this commercial need for more efficient video delivery that is driving the interest of MOQ. The report highlights that 28% of respondents plan to use MOQ in the next 12 months.

“It’s hard to believe that we’ve been producing this report for 10 years, and what a rollercoaster ride the last decade has been for the video industry,” Stefan Lederer, CEO and co-founder, Bitmovin, commented. “As we proudly present the 2026/27 report, it’s clear that AI is running the video stack, advertising is the primary revenue engine, QoE and observability have become foundational layers, and the business case for MOQ has never been stronger. But what really stands out this year, is just how fast the technology is developing - the last 3 months alone have reshaped what is possible for video developers to build and achieve. I can’t wait to see what another 10 years of the Video Developer Report will bring.”

This year's edition draws on insights from professionals across broadcast, OTT, and beyond, and for the first time includes analysis and contributions from industry analysts Jan Ozer and Dan Rayburn, alongside input from Bitmovin's partners and customers.

The Bitmovin Video Developer Report 2026/27 Edition is now available for download.

Bitmovin will be exhibiting at IBC from September 11-14 (hall 5, stand 5.F72). For more information, and to book a meeting, visit: https://bitmovin.com/ibc/.

New data from Parks Associations finds the Ruku player and operating system remains the most popular streaming media system in the U.S. with 43% of Americans reporting that a Roku device is their most-used streaming media player.

The Parks Associates’ Tech Ecosystem Dashboard, which includes data and analysis from surveys of 8,000+ US internet households, also found that 17% say their primary smart TV runs on Roku OS.

The Parks researchers noted that Fox Corporation’s planned acquisition of Roku for $22 billion highlights the strategic value of owning the platform that connects consumers to content, advertising, and streaming services.

“Roku’s strength is its reach across the connected TV experience,” said Michael Goodman, research director, Parks Associates. “Its position across smart TVs and streaming media players gives the platform influence that extends beyond any single hardware brand.”

More specifically, the Fox-Roku acquisition would bring strategic value to both companies. Fox brings premium live content, including sports and news, as well as Tubi, while Roku brings its operating system, The Roku Channel, Frndly TV, Howdy, advertising capabilities, and first-party data. Fox reports that Roku reaches more than 100 million streaming households globally.

The combination also strengthens Fox’s position in the growing free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) market. Tubi and The Roku Channel give the combined company two major ad-supported streaming properties, while Roku’s platform provides additional opportunities to connect content discovery, audience data, and advertising across the TV experience.

In the Parks top ten list of U.S. FAST streaming services, Tubi ranked as #1, followed by The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Samsung TV+, Xumo Play and LG Channels.

“Competition in video is now about who owns the relationship with the viewer,” Goodman said. “Content remains critical, especially live sports and news, but the platform determines how consumers discover that content and how providers engage and monetize audiences. The Fox and Roku combination brings greater control over how consumers access and discover content while expanding opportunities for viewer data, advertising, and distribution.”

With the NFL season starting on Weds. Sept. 9, a new study from Guideline is projecting another year of hefty ad sales growth, with 8% growth in ad revenue for the 2026-2027 season compared to last year.

Guideline is projecting that total ad revenue will hit $6.3 billion, with the inaugural Thanksgiving Eve game expected to generate $48 million in revenue.

That comes after 7% YoY growth in ad revenue in the 2025-2026 season, which hit a record $5.9 billion. Regular season ad revenue was up 6% YoY last year while playoff ad revenue was up 13% YoY.

"Overall ad demand looks healthy headed into the 26/27 season,” explained Sean Wright, chief insights and analytics officer at Guideline. “Upfront commits are pacing up double digits ahead of where they were last year, partly driven by increases in pricing, partly in a surge of new ad budgets. We'll see how much ultimately gets booked but right now, the regular season is shaping up to be another potentially record setting year."

Guideline also reported that in 2025-2026, streaming-exclusive games accounted for 13% of full-season revenue, nearly double the 8% share from two seasons ago. Overall, streaming-exclusive network ad growth was up 6% YoY in last year’s 2025-2026 season.

LONDON—While a new study from Ampere Analysis documents the ongoing decline in new orders for TV series, the research also shows that orders for new linear TV series has been more resilient than streaming VOD and that the new orders for scripted programming on linear TV actually grew in recent years.

The new report from Ampere Analysis found that between 2022 and 2025, US-produced linear orders fell 26%, a smaller decline than streaming counterparts, which fell 41%.

Very notably, the research also found that linear scripted series orders actually rose 11% in a slightly different time frame between 2023 and 2025, with a particular focus on renewing reliable franchise comedies such as “The Simpsons” and “American Dad.”

"In the post-Peak TV era, the traditional seasonal development cycle from linear broadcasters in the U.S. is evolving,” explained George Evans, senior researcher at Ampere Analysis. “With streaming players now accounting for a greater share of content spend globally, free-to-air linear commissioners in the US have adopted a more flexible approach to ordering, putting fewer titles through the development and pilot process and instead working more responsively year-round. By responding more dynamically to audience appetite and leaning on scripted franchises with established fanbases, broadcast TV can continue to prove its worth in the seemingly streamer-dominated US market."

More specifically the report found that between 2022 and 2025, U.S.-produced linear orders fell 26%, from 1,773 to 1,304, compared with a 41% decline in streaming orders, from 1,144 to 678. Linear Scripted series orders subsequently increased 11%, from 236 in 2023 to 262 in 2025.

Overall, free-to-air (FTA) channels have fared better than Pay TV.

Pay TV subscriber numbers have declined by 56% since 2016, as consumers switch to streaming. This drove a 33% decline in series orders between 2022 and 2025, down from 1295 to 877. In contrast, free-to-air broadcasters such as NBC, ABC, and CBS saw series orders drop 13% over the same period, from 408 to 352. Thematic Pay TV channels, particularly those focused on specific niches, such as Food Network and HGTV, have struggled to maintain ordering levels.

The report also highlighted changes in traditional TV development cycles. US Commercial free-to-air broadcasters are shifting away from the traditional seasonal development cycle of Q4 script orders and Q1 pilot orders, towards year-round development and 'straight-to-series' orders, committing to an entire season without first testing a pilot, the study found.

In addition, U.S. broadcast networks have shifted towards more disciplined primetime commissioning strategies. Since 2024, 52% of new scripted series orders have been franchise-based, reflecting a more disciplined approach to primetime commissioning.

The strength of broadcast programming can also found on streaming platforms. Around 50% of both linear and non-linear TV viewers enjoy genres such as comedy, action & adventure, crime & thriller, and drama. This alignment supports complementary commissioning strategies across broadcast and streaming. Primetime series from ABC, CBS and NBC generate strong engagement on Hulu, Paramount+ and Peacock, respectively, extending their value beyond linear TV.

“Despite the continued growth of streaming, broadcast television remains an important part of the US media landscape,” explained Eric Kurtsel, research manager, SME Media at Ampere Analysis. “Post-Peak TV, broadcast networks are taking a disciplined approach to primetime commissioning, focusing on proven genres and franchises that can connect with audiences across platforms. Viewers continue to engage with broadcast series on streaming platforms, suggesting their value extends beyond linear television and reinforcing broadcast TV’s foundational role in today’s content ecosystem."

LONDON—New data from Ampere Analysis shows Asia has become the world’s biggest region for first-run streaming scripted series orders for the first time, leaping two places from third to secure the top spot in the first half of 2026. More than one-third (36%) of first-run scripted TV orders from the leading global streamers now originate in APAC, the highest six-month share on record.

The new Ampere study also found that the APAC region surged ahead of North America and Western Europe in H1 2026 for the volume of new scripted TV commissions from the six leading global streamers - Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix and Paramount+. The region secured 70 first-run scripted commissions during the period, versus 46 for North America, 44 for Western Europe, and 34 for all other regions combined.

Cyrine Amor, senior research manager at Ampere Analysis, explained that “APAC has become increasingly important to global streamers for two reasons: it offers attractive opportunities for subscriber growth, while Asian content is increasingly finding audiences far beyond its home markets. India, South Korea and Japan remain at the heart of commissioning activity, but growth in markets such as Taiwan and the Philippines shows how widely streamers are now looking for locally produced content with regional and global potential.”

Of all streamers’ first-run scripted TV orders, 36% now originate from the APAC region, the highest six-month-period share to date. The rise is primarily driven by Amazon’s and Netflix’s commissioning activity in the region. In the same period, their combined first-run orders in Western Europe and North America remained almost flat compared to H1 2025.

India led the region with 25 orders, the highest increase among APAC markets, fueled by Prime Video’s commissioning push across multiple Indian languages. South Korea remained the region’s second-largest market by volume, where Netflix continues to lead commissioning activity among global streamers.

In terms of genre, one-third of these commissions were Crime & Thriller. Drama hit a new record of one quarter of commissions. Meanwhile, the Sci-Fi & Fantasy genre, which led by volume share in H1 2025, fell sharply.

Newer entrants to the streamers' regional subscriber acquisition race also stood out in this commissioning shift, the Ampere study stressed.

Taiwan and the Philippines experienced unusually high volumes of streamer orders, with nine and seven new scripted series commissioned respectively during the first half of 2026. In Taiwan, Netflix quadrupled its new scripted series orders compared to last year, including the medical drama “How to Survive Med School” and the influencer-led crime investigation “Million-follower Detective.” In the Philippines, Amazon led the charge with five new series announcements over the past six months, including the romance drama “The Loyalty Game.”

Recent successes such as Netflix’s Thai original “My Dearest Assassin” and Korean original “The Great Flood” demonstrate the potential for locally produced APAC content to travel beyond its home market. Streamers are also using licensing to capitalise on this demand, with Prime Video further expanding an existing multi-year worldwide distribution deal with CJ ENM in 2026, Ampere reported.

The commissioning surge reflects different stages of streaming growth across APAC. In more established markets, including India, South Korea and Japan, new productions are being used to both attract and retain subscribers while also targeting increasingly receptive regional and global audiences. In emerging streaming markets such as Taiwan and the Philippines, first-run commissioning is being used to support subscriber acquisition.

PLANO, Texas—Having a live TV bundle option is still important to half of all consumers surveyed in a recent Parks Associates report.

In the research firm’s latest consumer research The New Live TV Model: Skinny Bundles, Sports, News, 27% of US internet households prefer a live-TV bundle combined with their favorite streaming on-demand services, while 24% prefer a skinny bundle combined with their favorite streaming services. In total, 51% prefer a package that combines live TV with their favorite streaming services.

"Consumers are not necessarily choosing between live TV and streaming. Many want access to both in one package," said Michael Goodman, Director, Entertainment Research, Parks Associates. "Providers have the opportunity to offer greater flexibility to their consumers while making it easier to access the content they value."

Parks Associates also noted that 68% of streaming pay-TV subscribers (vMVPD subscribers), including consumers using services such as YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Fubo, and DirecTV Stream, like the idea of a skinny bundle—a pay-TV or streaming channel package that includes a limited number of core channels, typically focused on specific content types (e.g., entertainment, sports, or news). It is priced below traditional all-inclusive TV packages.

The findings show consumers continue to value live television, but their expectations for how it is packaged are changing, according to Parks. Smaller channel packages combined with streaming services can provide a middle ground between traditional pay TV and streaming-only options.

"Skinny bundles offer providers an opportunity to address consumers who want to maintain access to live television but are increasingly sensitive to the cost and size of traditional channel packages," Goodman said. "The strongest opportunity is retention. These packages can give existing subscribers another option before they decide to cancel service entirely."

New fixed wireless speed tests for Q2 2026 from Ookla show that T-Mobile continues to dominate the category, with a median download speed of 222.7 Mbps, (outpacing AT&T Internet Air by 38.8% and Verizon 5G Home by 76%).

T-Mobile’s Q2 2026 median upload speed (18.1 Mbps) also beat AT&T by 79.2% and Verizon by 48.5%.

The data also highlighted some encouraging trends and some emerging problems. All three providers experienced a performance drop in download and upload speeds between Q1 2026 to Q2 2026. This, however, is likely a seasonal impact, Ooklas reported as dense leaves on trees can weaken FWA signals.

In more positive news, AT&T’s median download speed surged nearly 60%—from 104.61 Mbps in Q3 2025 to 167.34 Mbps in Q1 2026. This is likely the result of deploying the additional 50 MHz of spectrum purchased from EchoStar, Ookla reported.

The report also highlighted an important shift in urban deployments that could have larger implications for the broadband industry.

Traditional cable and telco operators have long dominated urban markets and fixed wireless access providers have long been seen as an attractive technological solutions for rural areas, where the cost of wiring isolated homes can be high.

The new Ookla Q2 data shows, however, that fixed wireless providers can deliver faster speeds in urban areas, potentially making them more competitive with faster wired options from cable and telcos.

Rural FWA users across all three providers nationwide have lower median download speeds and higher multi-server latency. Urban users benefit from a multi-server latency that is 7 to 13 milliseconds lower than their rural counterparts, the Ookla data shows.

Even so, the Ookla data showed that only two states (Hawaii and New York) and the District of Columbia produced fixed wireless access samples where 40% or more of the samples met the FCC’s minimum standard for broadband speed (100 Mbps download/20 Mbps upload).

A new survey of American’s media habits find that 90% access YouTube on a typical weekday versus 79% for streaming services and 73% for Live TV.

Even so, they typically spend more time with streaming services (one hour and 49 minutes) versus YouTube (one hour and 46 minutes) and Live TV (one hour and 31 minutes), according to Attest.

Very notably, Attest’s 2026 Attention Economy Report, based on surveys of 1,000 UK and 1,000 US adults alongside five years of tracking data, found that creator content is now more popular than streaming or TV.

Americans spend an average of 3 hours and 54 minutes a day with YouTube, TikTok and social video, outstripping the time, three hours and 20 minutes, that people spend with live TV and streaming services like Netflix. “YouTube hasn’t just become an alternative to TV, it’s already ahead of it,” Attest reported. “Tellingly, 23% of Americans primarily watch YouTube on their televisions.”

These numbers are higher for younger age groups. “Gen Z watches by far the most YouTube, 2h 25m a day on average, well ahead of Millennials (1h 55m), Gen X (1h 18m) and Boomers (53m),” the researchers noted. “Men also watch significantly more than women overall (2h 09m vs 1h 23m).”

This does not spell the end of longform content, however, the researchers explained.

“The assumption behind most `short attention span' commentary is that video has been chopped into ever-smaller pieces because that’s all people want,” the study noted. “The data tells a more specific story: as creator platforms introduce longer content, it’s gaining eyeballs. Two-thirds of people regularly watch YouTube videos longer than 15 minutes, while 53% watch long-form on Facebook or Instagram and 39% on TikTok. All four of these platforms launched their short-form video products with strict length caps. They have since expanded them repeatedly, visibly chasing consumer demand for longer content, not just short clips.”

As the attention of consumers shifts from TV to social media platforms, the study also found that people are paying less attention to the TV programming they are watching. “Only 12% of people give TV their full attention, with no other activity happening alongside it. The other 88% are doing something else, and for 68% of the total, that specifically involves second screening: scrolling social media, shopping, searching, messaging, or gaming.”

The study also highlighted data regarding consumer’s willingness to tolerate high ad loads. High ad loads contributed to the shift of viewing from pay TV channels to streaming services and social media platforms, which in recent years have also begun showing more ads.

“Ad frequency tolerance is one of the only genuinely flat patterns in this entire report,” the researchers noted. “People say ads become excessive once they’re shown every 14 minutes on streamed TV and every 12 minutes on social video, a threshold that barely moves regardless of generation. What isn’t flat is what people do about it: 82% of Gen Z always or usually skip ads on social video, compared with 46% of Boomers; on streamed TV it’s 68% versus 36%. Everyone hits roughly the same wall, younger audiences just act on it faster and more completely…When people can’t skip an ad, only 44% say they continue watching as intended, 34% redirect their attention elsewhere, 17% mute it, and 3% stop watching altogether.’

The full report is available here.

A new survey from the VAB shows that consumers across all age levels are more likely to purchase products that appear in local TV news programming and that those ads also boost their opinion of the brand being advertised.

The study comes at a time when advertisers have expressed reluctance about appearing in news content given the levels of political polarization of the country and a growing push-back by publishers working to demonstrate the effectiveness of advertising in news.

The VAB worked with Dynata on the survey, which attempts to better understand the relationship between news environments and advertiser impact on adults 18 and older, those aged 18 to 34 and those between the ages of 35 to 54.

It found that ads in local TV news positively impact brand perception across audiences, with 37% of adults 18 and older saying that they had a better opinion of brands that advertise in local news (2.2 times those who disagreed the idea) and an even bigger impact among younger viewers.

Nearly half (47%) of those 18 to 34 agreed that they had a better opinion of brands that advertise in local news, 2.8 times those who disagreed.

The study also said that 31% of those younger 18 to 34 viewers were more likely to purchase a product they saw on local news, about 23% more than the 25% who said the ads in local TV news made them less likely to buy a product.

Overall 24% of all adults over 18 said they were more likely to purchase a product advertised in a breaking news story on local TV news, versus 18% who said they were less likely. Among those between the ages of 35 to 54, 25% were more likely to purchase the product versus 15% who were less likely, a 65% differential.

Brands advertising in national TV news also saw an uplift in the number of people being more likely to buy a product.

Among the hard to reach younger 18 to 34 demo, 28% said they were more likely to purchase a product advertised in national TV news, versus 22% who were less likely. Overall 22% of those 18 and older were more likely to purchase versus 16%, and 24% of those between the ages of 35 and 54 were more likely to purchase, versus only 14% being less likely.

ESPN delivered the most-watched WNBA game ever on cable as the Atlanta Dream-Indiana Fever matchup averaged 2.6 million viewers on Sunday, August 16.

The telecast ranks as the most-watched WNBA regular-season or postseason game ever on cable. The audience was up 178% compared to last year’s ESPN regular season average. The game peaked at 4 million viewers from 7:15-7:29 p.m. ET.

Leading into the game, WNBA Countdown presented by Google Pixel averaged 452,000 viewers on ESPN, up 33% compared to last year’s ESPN regular season average.

The second game of ESPN’s Sunday doubleheader also delivered a record audience, as the Phoenix Mercury celebrated Diana Taurasi’s jersey retirement. Portland Fire-Phoenix Mercury averaged 1.4 million viewers, the most-watched non-Indiana regular-season WNBA game ever on ESPN and up 46% from last year’s ESPN regular-season average.

Through 25 games, the WNBA on ESPN networks is averaging 1.4 million viewers, up 16% compared to the comparable point last season.

NEW YORK—Gracenote’s Q3 2026 Data Hub analysis shows rapid growth for sports-related ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels and programming over the last year.

Overall the number of FAST channels classified as sports rose 13.8% year over year to 264. Over the same period, unique sports program titles increased 31.2%, while individual games and events distributed across FAST climbed 37.5%.

Each measure captures a different dimension of the FAST sports market, the researchers noted.

Channel count tracks FAST channels classified as sports, while program title count reflects the breadth of distinct offerings. Because a single sports program title can encompass many games or competitions, tracking them individually provides a fuller picture of the volume of sports distributed across FAST.

The analysis also found that in July, sports programming appeared on 20 FAST channels outside the sports category. The pattern resembles traditional television, where sports serves as both destination programming on dedicated channels and as part of lineups centered on other genres.

In general, sports programming also grew faster than the overall FAST category. Globally, FAST channel count increased 17.5% year over year to 2,172, compared with 18.6% gains in total video distribution and 19.4% in TV program titles.

The resulting larger sports inventory gives FAST programmers greater flexibility to create varied schedules and reduce reliance on frequently repeated content, the researchers explained. More broadly, the findings suggest that competitive differentiation across FAST will increasingly be shaped by the range and volume of programming within the ecosystem—not channel count alone.

The Gracenote Data Hub is a set of data visualizations tracking the volume and composition of programming available across leading global subscription video-on-demand services (SVOD) and FAST channels. Derived from Gracenote Global Video Data and updated quarterly, the Data Hub covers Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix and Paramount+, as well as more than 2,170 FAST channels.

Q3 Data Hub reporting pairs program title counts with data on individual episodes, games and events, offering a more granular view of programming distribution and revealing changes beneath topline catalog and channel counts.

Devoncroft’s 2026 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) of global media tech buyers has once again ranked `IP Networking & Content Delivery’ as the top media tech trend.

Reflecting the ongoing transition to IP technologies, the result marked the sixth consecutive year (and for the seventh time in eight years) that `IP Networking & Content Delivery’ was the top trend.

Devoncroft researchers noted, however, that the margin between the top trend and the second ranked trend of ‘AI / ML / GenAI’ technologies narrowed versus 2025 BBS Global Trend Index.

‘AI / ML / GenAI’ has received a ranking of second since the 2023 BBS Global Trend Index, according to Josh Stinehour in a blog post announcing the results.

“One of the key outputs from the BBS is the annual BBS Global Trend Index,” he noted. “This is a ranking of the media industry trends that are considered by technology end-user respondents the most commercially important to their businesses in the next 2-3 years. In the 2026 survey efforts, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 23 industry trends and asked them to select the one trend that is `most important’ to their business, one trend that is `second most important’ to their business, and the other trends (plural) they consider `also very important.’

The BBS is the largest annual global study of media technology industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of technology vendor brands.

REMI came in number three, followed by multiplatform content delivery and automated operations, rounding out the top five.

The study reported the following ranking:

More data and information from the study is available here.

Check out TV Tech's extensive IP and Networking coverage here.

As the NBA gears up for the start of the 2026-2027 season on October 20, a new study from Guideline shows that NBA ad revenue hit a record $2.1 billion in the 2025-2026 season.

This growth was helped out by a 39% year-over-year spike in ad revenue during the NBA Finals, with ad spend rising from $183 million to $256 million for five games.

Overall, the regular season generated $870 million in revenue, while the playoffs brought in $1 billion.

Guideline also reported that streaming was up 8,481% YoY, rising to a 41% share in spending, the highest of any league ever recorded.

In addition, streaming-simulcast estimated revenue was also up 3,303% YoY, rising from $10 million in 24/25 compared to $347 million in 25/26.

However the linear ad spend declined 19% YoY, as spending from Warner Bros. Discovery shifted to Peacock and Amazon.

In contrast, playoff spending grew across every round, led by the play-in round, which was up 54% YoY.

NEW YORK—Nielsen’s June 2026 reports of The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge reveal that the highly anticipated FIFA World Cup 2026 drove remarkable audience engagement with over 84 billion minutes viewed across Fox and NBCUniversal properties.

That viewing also pushed both distributors to June's only viewing increases in the Media Distributor Gauge.

Meanwhile, the combination of World Cup matches and NBA Finals games helped drive a 118% increase in broadcast sports viewing, and led the broadcast category to 19.8% of TV and its first increase during a June interval (+0.6 share pts.) since the inception of The Gauge in 2021.

According to the June Media Distributor Gauge, Fox exhibited the largest gain in share of TV (+0.9 pts.) compared to May, and the largest overall viewing increase among all distributors this month (+18%). The World Cup surge boosted viewing on Fox affiliates by 73%, and Fox Sports 1 was up 232%. FOX concluded the month with 7.4% of total TV watch-time and moved up to No. 5 in the Media Distributor Gauge rankings.

NBCU-Versant represented 9.1% of total TV viewing in June (+0.7 share pts.). That success, the researchers reported, was a result of two drivers: NBCU’s Telemundo served as the exclusive home to all Spanish-language World Cup coverage, which drove a 143% monthly viewing increase to its broadcast affiliates in June. Peacock also benefited from Telemundo’s World Cup coverage, as days with games exhibited a 60% audience increase on the platform over those that did not, and viewing from Hispanic audiences increased nearly 200% compared to the prior month.

Peacock’s 34% total monthly viewing increase was also due to owning June’s most-streamed title, “Love Island USA.” The six-night-per-week appointment viewing for the reality dating series generated 6.8 billion minutes across the month. Overall, Peacock gained half a share point to represent 2.3% of total TV viewing in June, its second-best share of TV to date behind February 2026.

Overall streaming usage was up about 3% compared to May, but due to it being just below the 3.1% increase for total TV usage, the category dropped back 0.1 share point to 48.5% of TV watch-time.

In addition to Peacock, several other streamers also saw monthly viewing increases, including YouTube, Netflix, The Roku Channel and Paramount Streaming (Paramount+ and Pluto TV combined), but similar to the overall streaming category, their shares were flat or down slightly. However, YouTube remained in the lead among media distributors with 13.8% of time spent.

Disney held on to the No. 2 spot among media companies with 9.6% of TV. ABC’s coverage of the five-game NBA Finals showdown between the San Antonio Spurs and eventual champion New York Knicks helped drive a 15% viewing bump for ABC affiliates in June. Each game of the series was the most-viewed broadcast telecast on days played, and Games 3, 4 and 5 were the most watched telecasts over the June interval with more than 20 million viewers a piece.

Cable represented 19.5% of television in June (-0.9 pts.) as viewing was down 2% compared to May. This was largely due to the absence of the NBA and NHL playoffs, which led to a 10% monthly decline in cable sports viewership.

Due to the fact that advertising sales for Versant are still retained by NBCUniversal, and to preserve data trends and insights in these reports, NBCU and Versant are reported together in the Media Distributor Gauge with each company’s respective share included in the Media Distributor Gauge chart.

The June 2026 interval spanned four weeks, from 06/01/2026 through 06/28/2026. Nielsen reporting follows the broadcast calendar, with weekly intervals beginning on Monday.

NEW YORK—Gracenote has announced a deal with Fox’s Tubi Media Group that will see Gracenote supply advanced content discovery and advertising capabilities on Tubi Media Group properties, including Tubi and Fox One.

Gracenote's solutions provide unique identifiers, human-verified program metadata, rich imagery and standardized taxonomy that will provide improved content search and discovery capabilities for natural language queries.

As a part of the partnership, Tubi Media Group will also test Gracenote IDs in programmatic bid streams to improve contextually relevant advertising.

"Gracenote has been a valued partner, and this renewal underscores our commitment to innovation for both consumers and for advertisers across our streaming portfolio," said Paul Cheesbrough, CEO of Tubi Media Group. "As Tubi and FOX One continue to scale, we are excited about the future we're building."

"Tubi Media Group's market-leading streaming portfolio, combined with Gracenote's gold-standard content intelligence, make a powerful pairing," said Jared Grusd, CEO of Gracenote. "As the market embraces data and technology to maximize value for viewers and partners alike, Gracenote's curated and human-verified data provides an essential foundation—a definitive source of truth for entertainment experiences that keep consumers engaged."

Tubi recently announced it has reached 110 million monthly active users, with engagement growing 17% YoY and a record quarter of revenue, up 35% year over year.

In addition to record streaming levels during FIFA World Cup 2026, which saw more than 20 million viewers visit Tubi's World Cup Fox Hub, Tubi also announced that it reached an all-time high of 2.3% share of total U.S. TV viewing, according to Nielsen, and that more than 60% of its audience comprised of Gen Z and Millennials, who spend more time on Tubi than watching traditional broadcast or cable television.

Tubi's simulcast of the opening World Cup matches also delivered the most streamed English language opening match in World Cup history.

LONDON—As consumers continue to feel pressure from the rising cost of living, one researcher predicts that the increasing popularity of ad-supported streaming subscription services will reshape the streaming business.

According to Ampere Analysis, ad tiers are now the dominant monetization model in North America, and the research firm expects them to account for more than half (54%) of total subscription streaming service revenues in the region by year-end. As the world;s most mature streaming market increasingly relies on advertising to drive growth, Ampere says the region offers a clear indication of where the global streaming market is heading.

Ampere expects revenues from advertising alone will exceed $18 billion in North America this year, accounting for more than one-fifth of total subscription OTT revenues for the first time.

To illustrate how this could influence the world market, North America currently dominates the global ad-supported subscription OTT market, accounting for nearly 60% of global revenue. Platforms in this region benefit from stronger subscription ARPUs, higher CPMs, a more mature connected-TV advertising environment and a greater consumer acceptance of ads. As subscriber growth slows elsewhere, the region is suggesting the direction of travel for the global streaming market, Ampere said. Consumer goods and retail companies are leading the shift to streaming advertising, with Procter & Gamble, Amazon and Walmart accounting for 22% of U.S. subscription OTT advertising impressions so far in 2026.

Amazon’s Prime Video, which began charging subscribers a monthly fee to skip ads starting in 2023, leads the North American ad-supported subscription OTT market, with revenues expected to exceed $14 billion in 2026. In contrast, Netflix and Disney+ have encouraged users to choose their ad tiers, offering a lower price point and fewer ads.

"Advertising has become a fundamental part of streamers' business models, changing both how success is measured and the content they commission,” Ampere Analysis Research Manager Rory Gooderick said. “As subscriber growth slows in mature markets, the focus has shifted towards driving engagement and habitual viewing. The challenge now is to increase monetization without compromising the premium viewing experience that these streamers have spent years cultivating.”

LONDON—A new survey highlights just how important media consumption has become—with consumers in the U.K. and U.S. now spending almost 11 hours a day consuming media—and just how diverse and fragmented those habits are.

An Ampere Analysis study finds the average consumer in those markets spends more time consuming media than sleeping or working, and that consumers are increasingly selecting from a rich menu of media depending on their mood, age and needs.

“Today’s consumers have more varied media diets than ever before, selecting from an expanding menu of media depending on what they want in the moment,” Ampere Research Manager Sam Nursall said. “Whether they're looking to relax, discover something new or simply fill spare time, each medium serves a different purpose. That's today's attention economy. For advertisers and broadcasters, understanding those different moments is just as important as understanding the audience itself.”

Key findings include:

• The average U.S. or U.K. adult spends 11 cumulative hours engaged with media products every day. This includes overlapping activities, such as using a phone while watching TV or streaming.
• Streaming services (1:57), social media (1:46) and YouTube (1:35) attract the highest levels of daily media engagement.
• Consumers build their media diets around different moods and needs. Streaming services are most often used for relaxation and immersion, YouTube for discovery and lifting users’ mood, while social media is used to relieve boredom or provide distraction.
• Media diets also differ by age. Gen Alpha (age 11–15) spends the most time on YouTube (1:45) and gaming (1:56), while Gen Z (16–29) spends the most time on social media (1:54) and music services (1:20). Generation X and Baby Boomers spend relatively more time with streaming services, TV channels and live sports.
• Consumers in the U.S and U.K. access an average of 11.5 media platforms every week, including pay TV, streaming services, social media, music streaming, gaming and broadcaster VOD. Streaming services like Netflix or Disney+ account for 4.1 of these services per week. Gen Alpha accesses an average of 13.6 platforms, the highest of any age group.
• Mobile devices have expanded where media is consumed. More than half (55%) of music streaming users regularly listen outside the home, alongside 34% of podcast listeners, 20% of social media users and 11% of gamers.
• Mobile devices have also driven higher daily media engagement by making simultaneous media use easier. In the U.S. and U.K., for example, more than one-quarter (28%) of Netflix users regularly watch the service on a smartphone.
• One-third (33%) of YouTube users said they use the platform when they “want something on in the background.”

The Ampere Analysis “Attention Economy” survey was fielded in the U.S. and U.K. among respondents aged 11 to 64.

NEW YORK—Comcast’s FreeWheel has launched Video Content Report, an insight tool available in FreeWheel Buyer Cloud (formerly Beeswax) that provides TV series-level data on where ad campaigns actually appeared.

Fueled by direct connection to FreeWheel Streaming Hub (FreeWheel’s ad server with natively built SSP), the report gives buyers detailed, series-level insight into post-impression delivery from premium publishers, including A+E Global Media, Spectrum Reach, Fuse Media, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Xumo.

By using publisher-sourced delivery data recorded directly through the ad server, Video Content Report gives buyers a clearer, reliable view of where campaigns ran across premium streaming environments, helping increase transparency and confidence in their CTV investments.

“CTV buyers need series-level transparency they can trust and use at scale,” said Jon Mansell, vice president, U.S. demand for FreeWheel. “What makes Video Content Report unique is the direct connection between Buyer Cloud and Streaming Hub, which enables publisher-permissioned, impression-level delivery insights from multiple premium publishers in one workflow. That gives advertisers a clearer view of where their campaigns ran while giving publishers control over how their content data is shared.”

Powered by Buyer Cloud’s connection to FreeWheel Streaming Hub and impression-level delivery data, Video Content Report provides scalable series-level transparency to confirm content alignment and brand safety, at no extra cost, while helping publishers prove the value of their premium content.

In announcing the new tool, FreeWheel stressed that it is designed to address the needs of advertisers.

Over 50% of CTV advertisers say they would shift spend to publishers that provide show- or series-level transparency, according to new research from Advertiser Perceptions. As demand for this level of visibility grows, FreeWheel said it is helping make series-level reporting even easier to access and apply at scale. By bringing publisher-sourced insights into a more consistent workflow, Video Content Report gives buyers a clearer way to understand delivery across partners and use those insights to guide future planning and investment decisions.

Some advertisers and agencies applauded the launch. “As investment in programmatic CTV continues to grow, we as buyers need transparency that is accurate, scalable and easy to access,” said Mike Treon, head of CTV and video strategy for PMG. “FreeWheel’s Video Content Report addresses a real gap in the market by giving us series-level visibility directly within Buyer Cloud, helping us better understand campaign delivery across premium video without relying on one-off reporting requests or adding unnecessary reporting steps.”

The launch builds on FreeWheel’s broader commitment to giving buyers more transparency, control, and customization through Buyer Cloud, in addition to direct publisher connections. As a customizable demand-side platform built for premium video and connected to FreeWheel Streaming Hub, Buyer Cloud gives agencies and advertisers direct access to FreeWheel’s premium supply, robust decisioning tools and exclusive reporting capabilities designed to support more informed, efficient, and accountable media buying.

Video Content Report is now available in Buyer Cloud for all clients at no additional cost.

IRVING, Texas—A new analysis from Horowitz Research highlights the importance of multicultural audiences for the record viewing seen during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which concluded with a historic final and record-setting audience engagement of nearly 63 million Americans watching the event.

In addition to the 38.9 million viewers turning into the English-language soccer telecast on Fox, an additional 23.9 million viewers watched the Spanish-language telecast on Telemundo.

At the same time, Telemundo and Peacock reported Spanish-language streaming engagement in the U.S, with group-stage digital average minute audience up 251% versus the tournament in 2022. These results reflect a broader transformation in the media landscape, where multicultural audiences and digital platforms are driving growth, Horowitz reported.

Those results confirmed longstanding research from Horowitz highlighting the importance of multicultural audiences, making clear that multicultural audiences are a central part of the sports audience. The scale of Spanish-language viewing and the outsized role of Hispanic fans highlight how deeply soccer is embedded in cultural identity and community connection in the U.S.

Horowitz Research’s latest study, "State of Media, Entertainment, and Tech: Viewing Behaviors", which was conducted prior to the tournament, found that over half (54%) of Latinx consumers intended to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup, significantly higher than the total market (42%). Those expectations were borne out in the intensity and consistency of engagement seen throughout the tournament.

“What we saw in 2026 is the full realization of trends we’ve been tracking for years,” said Adriana Waterston, executive vice president, insights and strategy lead for Horowitz Research. “The World Cup is where culture, community, and media converge. It is not just about the game on the screen, it is about identity, connection, and shared experience across platforms and languages. Our research at the intersection of cultural insights and sports is focused on helping media brands and their advertisers and sponsors maximize engagement among Hispanic audiences, multicultural audiences, and the sports audience overall.”

The 2026 tournament also marked a turning point for streaming as a primary platform for live sports and highlighted a number of trends that content providers and advertisers will need to embrace if they want to attract these audiences, the Horowitz analysis found.

For starters, digital viewership surged across matches and rounds, with fans seamlessly moving between traditional television and streaming services depending on context and convenience.

This behavior was anticipated by Horowitz’s pre-event research, which showed that a majority of prospective viewers expected to stream matches live and use multiple devices beyond the TV set. The World Cup demonstrated that live sports can successfully operate in an ecosystem where linear and streaming are complementary.

The result is a new model for major sporting events, one that demands integrated distribution strategies across broadcast, streaming, mobile, and social platforms, the Horowitz analysis stressed.

Beyond platforms and audiences, the 2026 World Cup reinforced the idea that sports fandom is inherently social. Fans gathered at home, in public venues, and online, engaging with content before, during, and after matches. Social media, second screens, and shared viewing experiences were not secondary behaviors but, rather, they were core to how the event was experienced.

In surveys prior to the event, Horowitz Research found that large portions of viewers planned to watch with friends and family, attend viewing events, and engage with World Cup content across social platforms. The tournament brought those behaviors to life, with fans using the World Cup to connect across geographies, cultures, and generations.

The scale and nature of engagement during the 2026 World Cup also reinforced the value of live, multicultural sports environments for advertisers. High levels of attention, emotional investment, and cross-platform engagement create conditions that are uniquely powerful for brand impact.

In addition, the momentum from the 2026 FIFA World Cup is already extending into the next chapter of global soccer. Horowitz’s research suggests meaningful continued interest in global soccer events, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027.

“If 2026 showed us anything, it is that the playbook has changed,” added Waterston. “The audiences driving growth are diverse, the platforms are fluid, and the experience is shared. The organizations that understand and embrace that reality will be the ones that win in the next era of global sports.”

For more information, visit www.horowitzresearch.com.

MIAMI, Fla.—Telemundo is reporting that its Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2026 set audience records at every stage of the tournament.

Overall, the tournament is the most-watched FIFA World Cup tournament in Spanish-language media history with an average Total Audience Delivery of 6.3 million viewers across the 104 matches, up +143% vs. the 2022 tournament (2.6 million). Each stage of the 2026 tournament set a new Spanish-language World Cup Total Audience record and delivered triple-digit growth versus the 2022 World Cup.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 also delivered impressive growth over 2022 in linear and streaming, with the linear match window average up +79% (3.2 million vs. 1.8 million) and the digital average minute audience (AMA) up +297% (3 million vs. 767K).

In addition, Sunday’s final battle, which saw Spain earn its second title as they dethroned reigning champions Argentina, delivered a 23.9 million Total Audience Delivery (TAD), becoming the most-watched soccer match ever in Spanish-language media history.

It also set numerous records for streaming, digital media and social media.

Combined with the 39.8 million who watched Fox Sports English-language coverage on Fox, 63.7 million Americans watched the final.

Telemundo produced more than 700 hours of original programming through the 39-day tournament.

Other data highlights included:

• The FIFA World Cup 2026 tournament delivered the 15 most-watched soccer matches in Spanish-language media history based on Total Audience, led by Spain vs. Argentina’s 23.9 million viewership in the Finals.
• The 77.2 billion total minutes consumed during the FIFA World Cup 2026 across Telemundo, Universo, Peacock, and Telemundo streaming platforms, surpassed the 43.2 billion total minutes consumed for the combined 2018 and 2022 Men’s World Cup tournaments in Spanish by +79%.
• Mexico vs. England delivered 23.2 million viewers in Total Audience Delivery (TAD), making it the second most-watched soccer match ever in Spanish-language media history. On linear, the full program averaged 10.1 million viewers from 8:25–11:20 p.m. ET, making it the highest-rated telecast in Spanish-language TV history; viewership peaked at 11.7 million viewers at 10:45 p.m. ET.
• The France vs. England Third Place match delivered 7.7 million viewers in Total Audience Delivery, making it the most-watched Third Place game in Spanish-language media history, up +225% vs. the 2022 tournament (Croatia vs. Morocco, 2.4 million).
• 42 games had a Total Audience Delivery of at least 6 million viewers, up from two during the full 2022 tournament.
• Overall, streaming comprised 48% of Telemundo’s Total Audience Delivery for the FIFA World Cup 2026, up from 30% contribution in 2022. With an average minute audience (AMA) of 3 million viewers on Peacock and Telemundo streaming platforms, digital viewership grew +297% vs. 2022 (767,000).
• Spain vs. Argentina Finals on July 19, is the most-streamed World Cup match in Spanish-language history with an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 13.9 million viewers, +370% over the most-streamed match of the 2022 tournament (Argentina vs. France Finals, 3 million AMA).
• There were 21 games that averaged 4 million or more streaming viewers, up from zero in 2022.
• Telemundo ranked as the #1 Spanish-language television network across all 34 matchdays (June 11 – July 19) during Total Day (7A-2A) with 1.9 million average viewers, and a share of 76% of the three Spanish-language networks. This Total Day delivery is up +300% vs. the network’s May 2026 average.
• June 2026 was Telemundo’s highest-performing month in network history with 1.4 million average viewers in Total Day, surpassing the previous World Cup highs set in June 2018 (954K) and December 2022 (837K).
• Sunday, July 5, set a new linear record with the highest Total Day average audience in Spanish-language television history with 3.6 million viewers, driven by the Mexico vs. England and Brazil vs. Norway Round of 16 matches.
• Throughout the duration of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Peacock drew four times its normal share of Hispanic viewers. Those viewers who watched World Cup also watched a variety of Peacock content, including Telemundo entertainment (e.g., El Señor de los Cielos), Peacock originals (e.g., Love Island USA, MIA, Five Star Weekend), Sports (e.g., MLB), and library content (e.g., Yellowstone, The Office).
• Cultural cross-over: While each of these cultural phenomena drew massive audiences on its own, 40% of Peacock viewers who watched Love Island USA also watched the FIFA World Cup 2026.
• On Peacock, one in three FIFA World Cup viewers are Gen-Z, and they are especially receptive to brands: +21% more likely to feel loyal to World Cup advertisers and +24% more likely to view World Cup advertising as more credible than other ads.
• The FIFA World Cup 2026 generated 2.25 billion video views across social platforms, more than 9x the combined total generated during the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups.
• The tournament generated 75.1M social actions across social platforms, nearly 3x the combined total generated during the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups.
• Round of 16 Match Day 26 became the highest social engagement day in Telemundo FIFA World Cup history, generating 5.28M social actions.
• Round of 16 Match Day 27 became the most-viewed social day in Telemundo FIFA World Cup history, generating 135.6M video views.
• On linear, the 26 Telemundo-owned stations reached 22.3 million total viewers through the FIFA World Cup 2026 Semifinals.
• The Telemundo-owned stations’ average audience through the FIFA World Cup 2026 Semifinals of 2.52 million viewers was +57% higher than the same period during the 2022 tournament (1.61 million) and +64% above 2018 (1.54 million).
• Eight Telemundo-owned stations captured 50 percent or more of the FIFA World Cup 2026 audience share in their markets, including in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, and Phoenix, through the Semifinals.

YouTube has released a new study showing that in 2025, YouTube’s creative ecosystem contributed over $60 billion to the U.S. GDP and supported more than 540,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

The economic analysis was done by Oxford Economics for the YouTube Report released on July 16.

The study also stressed that the impact is nationwide for both rural and urban areas. YouTube reported that currently all 50 states have at least 10 channels with over 1 million monthly views. Those views translate into business growth: 76% of small- and medium-sized businesses with a YouTube channel say YouTube played a role in helping them grow their customer base by reaching new audiences.

The study also found that 77% of creators say their media and entertainment career started on YouTube.

Other key findings include:

• 87% of viewers report watching music videos, music festivals, or awards ceremonies on YouTube in the last year and 67% of viewers report discussing a YouTube video together with a friend or family member on a monthly basis, rising to 72% for Gen Z.
• 94% of teachers who use YouTube report using YouTube content directly in their lessons and/or assignments, with 81% stating it provides access to educational content that students would not otherwise have. At home, 78% of parents who use YouTube say YouTube (or YouTube Kids for children under 13) provides quality content for their children's learning and/or entertainment.

The full report is available here.

Netflix is reporting record viewing levels in the first half of 2026, with its subscribers watching more than 97 billion hours of programming.

It also released its 10 most popular movies and shows.

Among the movies, "War Machine" was #1 with 147 million hours of viewing, followed by "The Rip" (136 million hours), "Swapped" (131 million hours), "KPop Demon Hunters" (130 million) and "Apex" (129 million hours.)

The ten most popular shows were led by “His&Hers” (104 million hours of viewing), “Bridgerton” season 4 (100 million hours) and “I Will Find You” (64 million hours).

Other highlights included:

• Netflix audiences love to discover and watch new series. Five of the top 10 most-watched shows premiered in the first half of this year, with I Will Find You (64 million) and Teach You a Lesson (48 million) from South Korea both reaching the top 10 less than a month after their releases. The streamer also reported big audiences for new stories such as His & Hers (104M) — the #1 most watched show in the half — along with Run Away (50 million) and Nemesis Season 1 (33 million), which was recently renewed for a second season.
• New seasons consistently drive discovery and viewing of past seasons of a series. The return of Bridgerton Season 4 (100 million) nearly tripled viewing of every earlier season of the franchise (including Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story), when compared to the second half of 2025. Together, the entire Bridgerton franchise brought 180 million views in the first half of this year. Netflix also saw a boost in viewership for past seasons of series including ONE PIECE (69 million views across seasons), The Night Agent (63 million views across seasons), Virgin River (54 million views across seasons) and The Lincoln Lawyer (59 million views across seasons).
• Netflix original films continue to draw in huge audiences across genres. The action film slate performed particularly well this half, with The Rip (136 million), Apex (129 million) and Thrash (100 million) among the most-watched. War Machine was the biggest title in the half with 147 million views. Animated films are becoming hits. Swapped came in at 131 million views in the half and is on track to become the second most-watched original animated film ever, behind KPop Demon Hunters (130 million) — which came in at #4 despite premiering over a year ago. Book-to-screen adaptations were also popular with successful films including People We Meet on Vacation (78 million) and Remarkably Bright Creatures (51 million). And Rom-coms like Office Romance (58 million) and Voicemails for Isabelle (53 million) also moved audiences.
• Non-English titles represent more than a third of all viewing on Netflix, with titles from South Korea, Japan and Spain among the most-watched. South Korea continues to deliver a strong slate of titles including Teach You a Lesson (48 million), Can This Love Be Translated? (29 million), The Art of Sarah (26 million), My Royal Nemesis (16 million) and the Season 2 return of the hit series Bloodhounds (24 million). Japan continues to drive viewing with original stories like Straight to Hell Season 1 (10 million) and Sins of Kujo Season 1 (9 million). Spain released several popular titles this half including Firebreak (34 million), The Marked Woman (26 million), Oasis Season 1 (10 million), and from the creators of Money Heist — Berlín and the Lady with an Ermine (28 million).
• India had its highest viewing for a half yet with hits like Dhurandhar (37 million) — the most-watched non-English film in this report — Accused (19 million), Made in Korea (18 million) and Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Season 1 (16 million). South Africa broke through with global successes like 180 (37 million) for film and The Polygamist Season 1 (17 million) for series. In addition, Netflix reported a number of stories that resonated locally and travel globally including Colors of Evil: Black (23 million) from Poland, Radioactive Emergency Season 1 (22 million) from Brazil, A Father’s Miracle (21 million) from Mexico, Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole Season 1 (22 million) from Norway, My Dearest Assassin (18 million) from Thailand, The Big Fake (17 million) from Italy and The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek (11 million) from Denmark.
• Members enjoy a variety of different programming. Must-watch live events brought audiences together in the first half for everything from Kevin Hart’s comedy spectacle with The Roast of Kevin Hart (21 million) to Alex Honnold’s thrill-seeking climb with Skyscraper Live (13 million) and BTS’ monumental comeback with BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG (21 million) that thrilled fans around the world.
• More than half of its members today have watched at least one anime title, where we saw breakouts with new stories like BAKI-DOU: The Invincible Samurai Season 1 (8 million), STEEL BALL RUN: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (8 million) and Cosmic Princess Kaguya! (8 million).
• Documentaries of all kinds captivated viewers — from true crime stories like The Crash (65 million), to pop culture sensations like Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model Season 1 (22 million) and epic prehistoric tales like The Dinosaurs Season 1 (32 million).
• Kids & family continues to perform well, with creators like Ms. Rachel, the most-watched kids title at 69 million views across two seasons, plus Mark Rober's CrunchLabs (36 million across four seasons) and newcomers Salish & Jordan Matter (29 million across both seasons) and Danny Go! Season 1 (26 million).

PLANO, Texas—New research from Parks Associates' Broadband Market Tracker shows broadband subscriber losses among the largest cable providers continue to lessen as operators strengthen customer retention efforts and expand converged broadband and mobile offerings.

Leading cablecos, including Comcast, Charter Spectrum, and Altice, lost an estimated 280,000 combined broadband subscribers during the first quarter of 2026, an improvement from an estimated decline of 320,000 subscribers in Q1 2025.

During the same period, cable MVNOs added approximately 830,000 combined mobile subscriptions, highlighting continued consumer interest in bundled connectivity services.

"The competitive landscape has shifted from winning subscribers at any cost to keeping existing customers through better pricing, simplified service offerings, and integrated connectivity," said Kristen Hanich, senior director of research, Parks Associates. "Providers are investing in strategies that reduce churn while strengthening the value of broadband through mobile bundles and improved customer experiences."

The research also found that providers are introducing new programs designed to address key causes of customer churn, particularly during household moves and service transitions. Competition is also intensifying around pricing and bundled offerings.

"Optimum introduced a promotion guaranteeing $25 per month for 300 Mbps fiber service for five years for new customers, while encouraging additional savings through mobile and TV bundles," Hanich said. "Starlink replaced its $499 upfront hardware purchase with a monthly equipment fee, lowering the initial cost of adoption and shifting more expense into recurring monthly service."

The data from Park’s Tracker service also found continued momentum toward converged connectivity services. During the first half of 2026, both AT&T and Verizon introduced integrated home internet and mobile offerings that simplify billing and strengthen customer loyalty.

Current adoption of this bundle is now at 26% of all US households, according to Parks Associates. These unified service models reflect a broader industry strategy to increase customer lifetime value while reducing subscriber churn.

The Broadband Market Tracker provides ongoing analysis of broadband subscriber trends, competitive strategies, pricing, fiber, cable, fixed wireless, satellite broadband, and converged service offerings across the US market

While live sports have become a bulwark of broadcast programming, a new analysis of sports viewing shows that viewers of the NFL and other popular sports are skewing older, with more than half of the NFL’s casual viewers being older than 55.

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, approximately three-quarters of Americans watch live sports, with football dominating viewership at 53%. The analysis reveals that casual sports fans, who watch less than five hours weekly, comprise 44% of NFL viewers and that these casual viewers represent a significantly older demographic, with half being adults over 55 years of age.

After football, the Winter Olympics (41% of Americans), Summer Olympics (38%), baseball (36%) and basketball (38%) were watched by the largest percentage of the population.

Other key highlights include:

• Casual sports fans dominate the NFL viewership landscape, accounting for 44% of all NFL viewers, the highest percentage among major professional sports leagues. These casual viewers, defined as watching less than five hours of sports per week, represent 53% of total sports viewers and demonstrate a distinctly older demographic profile, with 51% being adults aged 55 and older and only 18% being young adults under 35.
• Major league viewership shows consistent patterns across baseball, basketball, and hockey, with approximately one-third of MLB, NBA, and NHL viewers classified as casual sports fans. The NFL attracts 48% of US internet adults for regular-season games, followed by MLB at 34%, NBA at 29%, and NHL at 19%, demonstrating football's substantial lead in overall market penetration.
• Age distribution reveals stark contrasts between casual and engaged sports fans, as moderate sports fans (5-10 hours weekly) and avid fans (over 10 hours weekly) share very similar demographic profiles. Both segments consist of approximately one-third young adults under 35 and one-third adults aged 55 and older, contrasting sharply with the older-skewing casual fan base.
• Total media consumption correlates directly with sports viewing intensity, as avid sports fans spend an average of 7.2 hours per day watching TV and video programming compared to 4.9 hours for casual sports fans. The data indicates that increased sports viewing displaces entertainment content such as movies, TV series, and documentaries, while news programming consumption remains consistent across all fan segments.
• Football maintains its position as America's dominant sport, with 53% of Americans watching football (NFL or NCAA), significantly outpacing other major sports. Baseball and basketball each attract approximately 36% of Americans, while ice hockey draws 20% viewership. The recently-completed Winter Olympics attracted 41% of US internet adults, demonstrating strong interest in major sporting events beyond traditional league play.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—Although CTV advertising continues to see rapid growth, a new survey indicates that buyers remain skeptical of some of the performance claims and increasingly are asking hard questions about measurement, accountability and business impact of their CTV ad campaigns.

These concerns stand in stark contrast to the longstanding claims that connected TV platforms can provide advertisers with clear and convincing data showing the impact of their ad campaigns.

While those claims have helped CTV platforms grab an every growing share of the ad market, new research from Jamloop, a performance CTV platform that connects streaming TV to real business outcomes, shows that CTV is winning a larger share of marketing budgets but not a lot of trust.

Based on a survey of 120 senior brand and agency marketers, the report, “CTV Is Winning Budget. Trust Is Still Catching Up” found that 50% of marketers say their CTV budgets increased year over year, and 63% say CTV already plays a strong performance role in their media mix or is becoming a more accountable performance channel.

However, only one in three buyers (33%) say they fully trust most platform-reported performance claims, while 62% express some level of skepticism.

Accountability standards also remain uneven: Only 42% say CTV is currently held to the same accountability standards as search and social. And, marketers still struggle to defend the spend internally. Only 39% say they feel very confident defending CTV investment to leadership based on current measurement and attribution.

The researchers suggest that better proof could unlock the next wave of growth: More than 70% say they would increase CTV investment if measurement, attribution, and proof of business outcomes improved. Respondents also said that trust concerns remain part of the performance story. More than 60% say they are concerned about fraud or misrepresented inventory in CTV environments.

“The industry has already proven that advertisers want CTV,” said Jeff Fagel, CMO at Jamloop. “What buyers are asking now is a tougher question: what business outcomes does CTV actually drive? Advertisers don’t need another dashboard. They need proof they can defend. The platforms that can prove business impact in ways marketers can actually see and feel, not just through dashboards showing media metrics moving in the right direction, will be the ones that win the next wave of CTV investment.”

The research also points to a broader shift in the media mix. More than 63% of respondents say they are seeing at least some diminishing returns from lower-funnel channels such as paid search and paid social, creating an opening for CTV to play a larger role in performance-focused strategies.

At the same time, marketers remain divided on what CTV performance should actually mean. While 35% prioritize qualified leads, 30% point to online sales and revenue, 30% define performance through revenue or sales lift, and 24% focus on store visits, appointments, or calls. That fragmentation makes it harder to establish common success metrics, compare results across campaigns, and build broader confidence in the category.

For many buyers, performance now means more than site traffic or media metrics alone. It means proving online sales, offline revenue, leads, visits, installs, or broader business impact in a way leadership teams can recognize and trust.

“CTV no longer needs to prove it belongs in the media mix,” Fagel added. “It needs to prove it belongs in the next wave of performance budgets.”

To download the full report, visit jamloop.com.

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.— New research commissioned by Bango, a U.K.-based provider of subscription bundling platforms, finds that 43% of Americans would switch their mobile, broadband, or TV provider for a better sports streaming bundle, putting more than four in ten customers up for grabs.

That churn risk is the clearest signal yet that sports has become a frontline battleground for telcos fighting for customers. With sports rights fragmented across streaming platforms, telco providers are becoming a trusted way for consumers to consolidate sports content, according to Bango, which cites that more than half (52%) say they would trust their own provider above anyone else to pull all the live sports they care about into a single bundle.

This fragmentation is on full display right now. To follow the 2026 World Cup in the US, English-language viewers are split across Fox and FS1, subscription service Fox One, and free ad-supported Tubi, while Spanish-language coverage runs on Telemundo and streams on Peacock. Even the biggest event in world sport has fans hopping between apps and subscriptions to follow a single tournament: exactly the kind of confusion consumers are looking to their telco to solve, Bango said.

The findings also indicate that sports content now influences telco choice nearly as much as price, with 45% of respondents preferring a provider with a strong sports streaming bundle over one with a lower monthly price. In fact, 42% would pay more to their current provider if it included the sports they care about, according to Bango.

Sports bundles are also a strong driver of loyalty and growth; 46% of Americans say a sports streaming bundle would make them more loyal to their current provider, and 49% say it would be more likely to recommend them. On the other hand, if telcos remove access to sports, 48% of Americans would then consider switching to a competitor.

Bango notes that these findings highlight an ongoing shift in the telco sector, with providers moving beyond connectivity to bundle the subscriptions consumers value most.

“Just like on the field, telcos can win or lose with sport, and the numbers make that impossible to ignore,” said Giles Tongue, subscription expert at Bango. “More than four in ten Americans would switch telco for a better sports bundle, and almost as many would walk if their provider lost access to the sports they love. Connectivity alone has never held that kind of power over customer choice.”

"This is the clearest commercial signal telcos will get. Sports rights are scattered across a dozen platforms, and consumers are looking to their provider to pull them back together. They'll pay more, stay longer, and recommend whoever does it first. In this fight, bundling is the weapon. The telcos that move fast to bundle sports will win the customer, but the ones that hesitate will spend the next decade defending against churn."

The research, commissioned by Bango and conducted by an independent research agency, is based on a representative sample of 2,500 American consumers aged 18 and over and was conducted in May 2026.

A newly released study argues that U.S. broadcasters face a content crisis, in part because up to 75% of journalists’ time is squandered on technical busywork.

Broadcast journalists are currently spending three-quarters of their time on technical workflows often referred to as busywork, according to a Caretta Research study sponsored by streaming technology firm Quickplay. That leaves just a fraction of their time available for doing what they’re best at, Quickplay said—delivering timely, accurate, trusted and relevant content to their local audiences.

This constraint is particularly troubling because it puts North American broadcasters at risk of losing viewers to third-party platforms, the researchers noted.

“When local broadcast journalists lose 75% of their days to technical workflows, they're not just facing a productivity problem, they're staring at an existential one,” Quickplay Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer Paul Pastor said. “While the demand for trusted and relevant local content remains high, new rules are in play for local broadcasters to survive.”

This “technical busywork…could be automated, accelerated and improved,” Ed Barton, research director at Caretta Research, added. “The shift to unified, software-orchestrated operations is no longer optional, it is the urgent step required to empower and accelerate key staff, enabling broadcasters to compete more effectively in the streaming age. The technologies enabling such a transition used to be expensive and required a lot of customization. However, vendors have worked hard to ensure adopting such capabilities is accessible to even the smallest broadcaster.”

The report, titled “The Broadcaster Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” examines how broadcasters can use their strengths—deep local knowledge, trusted brand equity and their content archives—to stay relevant and compete effectively as visual entertainment shifts decisively to streaming.

One major challenge is the fragmented state of broadcasters’ content archives, the report noted. Local stations hold vast amounts of content, but it is spread across many different media asset management systems and file types.

Without the right infrastructure, finding, retrieving and repurposing this content takes too long, the study reported.

Furthermore, many newsrooms and production teams lack a complete view of all their assets, according to the study, making the process of finding the right clip or footage too time-consuming for a busy news operation. As the report highlights, staff currently "just have to know where it is," often relying on the memory of experienced employees to locate specific video files.

Workflows designed for traditional linear broadcasting are too slow for the high volume and publishing cadence needed to satisfy the audiences and algorithms on social and third-party platforms, the study said.

Social media platforms reward consistent, relevant and rapid publishing that elicits engagement and reaction. Boadcasters who want to increase their video presence on these platforms, using the appropriate formats and distinct editorial voices expected by a given audience, need new workflows.

To address these issues, the study found broadcasters are increasingly adopting unified software or orchestration layers that offer visibility and control of their content, production and distribution workflows. Instead of risky “rip-and-replace” approaches to upgrading technology, such an approach reduces deployment, operational and economic risk while conferring significant performance and efficiency gains that quickly stack up, even in smaller operations.

By making core workflows visible and controllable from a single UI, or "one pane of glass,” editors and journalists can easily find, clip, package and distribute content without constantly switching between tools or moving files. This change transforms content archives from cost centers into potential drivers for audience engagement, enabling highly skilled staff to focus on doing what they do best. It also enables broadcasters to assert themselves and compete effectively on the platforms where their audiences spend the most time.

“Gone are the days where broadcast is always the first format and then recut for other platforms,” Pastor added. “Our digital-first world demands the flexibility to start with vertical before broadcast when appropriate. An orchestrated, content-to-value platform then turns one story into formats built for each of these platforms simultaneously, so broadcasters can compete at the same velocity and reach as anyone else without giving up their real superpower: local relevance."

For more information and to access the full research, click here.

DALLAS—In the wake of the news that Fox plans to pay $22 billion to acquire Roku, a new survey from Horowitz Research highlights how important streaming platforms have become in the connected TV ecosystem and reaffirms Roku's position as the most commonly used streaming platform among U.S. consumers.

According to "Horowitz Research’s State of Media, Entertainment, and Tech: State of Subscription’s 2026" report, nearly four in ten U.S. streaming platform users choose Roku to stream content, outpacing top competitors Amazon Fire TV and Samsung’s Smart Hub interfaces, each of which are used by almost one in three streamers.

While Roku leads in penetration and usage, the study also shows that consumers rate competing platforms more favorably across key experience measures.

For example, Amazon Fire TV outranks Roku on ease of finding content within the platform as well as lagging time, the ability to cast to screens, and the ad experience. Samsung outperforms on Wi-Fi connectivity and reliability. Both these systems outrank Roku on start-up speed and smart home integration.

While Google TV and Apple TV have less penetration within streaming households, both platforms fare better on key attributes compared to Roku.

“Roku’s acquisition by Fox is a strategic move designed to deliver younger viewers to the aging Fox demographic,” noted Adriana Waterston, executive vice president of insights and strategy for Horowitz Research. “But as the market for smart TV’s continues to evolve, we anticipate that consumers will increasingly choose their smart TV interfaces scrupulously, much like they do with their mobile devices. To continue to dominate the market, Roku will need to look not just as driving penetration but finessing their interface to meet the demands of Gen Z and younger consumers who will expect a robust, highly personalized, and tech-forward user experience.”

The study also found that “Roku’s new Ad Manager, which will enable smaller businesses to leverage hyper-local TV ads, is exciting because it democratizes access to CTV advertising for local and emerging brands,” she added. “However, it runs the risk of over-saturating the Roku viewing experience with repetitive, lower quality ads which could further alienate the younger audience that already has low tolerance for advertising.”

For more information about the "State of Media, Entertainment & Tech: Subscriptions 2026" report, visit: https://www.horowitzresearch.com/syndicated-research/state-of-media-subscriptions/.

NEW YORK, NY—WunderKIND Ads has released a new study analyzing the impact of Pause Ads compared with traditional CTV spots that show Pause Ads delivered nearly two times higher attention than standard 60-second CTV ads.

Pause Ads are ads that appear when users pause programming on CTVs.

Utilizing TVision attention data, the study analyzed millions of programmatic CTV impressions from WunderKIND Ads campaigns run via the OpenGlass platform. The data spanned top verticals—including Auto, QSR, CPG, and Travel—and covered hundreds of premium publishers across Dish, Philo, Plex, and more.

When broken out by category, Pause Ads outperformed traditional 60-second CTV spots across all 13 verticals analyzed. Automotive delivered the strongest results, generating 34.2 seconds of Attention Time versus 12.2 seconds for standard CTV video (+180.3%), followed by Technology at 33.3 seconds versus 12.8 seconds (+160.2%) and Restaurants at 34.0 seconds versus 13.5 seconds (+151.9%).

"Yes, these benchmarks are based on our campaigns, but the scale of the measurement analysis makes it incredibly valuable to the industry at large,” said Adam Gendelman vice president, head of sales, supply and operations at WunderKIND Ads. “We’re moving into the next phase of CTV advertising, where user-first formats are undoubtedly more effective than the historical foundation of interruptive fifteen- and thirty-second video spots.”

WunderKIND Ads’ programmatic solution, offered through OpenGlass’ advanced CTV platform, expands the company’s advertising footprint. These units seamlessly appear the moment a viewer pauses content, transforming a passive screen into an intentional, high-attention ad experience without disrupting the user experience.

More information is available at www.wunderkindads.com/

With the FIFA World Cup 2026 now underway, a new study from Harris Poll finds that half of Americans plan to watch at least one match on TV, streaming, or social media over the next 39 days and that the World Cup is driving increased interest in soccer among Americans.

Slightly more than half (52%) of Americans say hosting major international sporting events in North America is making them more interested in sports they would not normally follow, a figure that is much higher among millennials (70%) and Hispanics (70%).

In the case of soccer, the presence of the FIFA World Cup 2026 in North America is driving a large new fan base for soccer. More than one quarter (26%) said they only recently started getting more interested in soccer and that their interest was specifically as a result of this year's World Cup.

Of this new U.S. fan base, 72% said it was because they watched matches on TV or streaming and 65% said they wanted to support the U.S. team.

The study also found that even before the start of the World Cup this summer, 39% of U.S. adults are already interested in the 2026 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

Overall the study found that 27% of Americans are more interested in soccer than they were a year ago. Among this audience, millennials are the core audience, with 62% interested in the World Cup compared to 57% of Gen Z and only 24% of boomers. Hispanics are the most engaged group, with 63% interested compared to 37% of white Americans.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Despite current economic pressures, consumers are watching more video entertainment than in the previous five years, but in a more fragmented media environment, according to TiVo’s Q4 2025 Video Trends Report.

Consumers are watching more video daily than at any time since the 2021 pandemic era, with households returning to an average of more than 10 video services in Q4 2025, TiVo said. This represents peak media consumption following a brief decline in 2024. For the quarter, viewing surpassed five hours per day and monthly entertainment spending rose to $161, reflecting year-over-year growth after a post-pandemic dip.

Looking at consumed content, local programming accounts for nearly 30% of total viewing time, an increase of approximately five percentage points year over year. Sports also remain a key driver of engagement, with nearly 60% of sports viewers relying on pay TV as their primary source. Live and local content continues to anchor viewing behavior in a notably fragmented environment.

“The findings reinforce that video serves as a historically resilient, high-priority category, even as the entertainment landscape grows increasingly fragmented and competitive,” TiVo said.

As entertainment ecosystems continue to expand, viewing preferences remain relatively stable. About half of respondents prefer that streaming services release an entire season at once, compared to roughly 20% who favor a weekly episode rollout, underscoring continued demand for convenience and flexible viewing experiences.

“Consumers are watching more video than ever before, but they’re enjoying that content across an increasingly fragmented mix of platforms and services,” said Geir Skaaden, chief products and services officer at Xperi. “As the entertainment ecosystem continues to expand, helping viewers easily discover and access the content they want has become more important than ever. For advertisers and platforms alike, delivering simple, seamless viewing experiences will be critical to reaching audiences and keeping them engaged.”

While viewing continues to expand across platforms, content discovery remains a growing challenge. As households manage more services, viewers are navigating a complex content ecosystem, with 40% of consumers checking two to three different apps before deciding what to watch. Discovery is also shifting beyond the platforms themselves, with word of mouth (49%) and social media (40%) most often influencing viewers. This reliance on external inputs, combined with increased fragmentation, is making content discovery less efficient and more frustrating for viewers.

“The number of viewing options available to consumers continues to grow, but what is most notable is how audiences are responding to that expansion,” Alan Wolk, TVREV’s co-founder and lead analyst, said. “Consumers are becoming more selective about where they spend their time and money, and entertainment services remain a priority. Live sports and local programming serve as important anchors, while the broader market is shifting toward simpler, more value-conscious viewing choices. The industry is entering a phase where effective curation and discovery matter just as much as scale.”

Additional report highlights:

• Ad-supported growth: More than half of consumers (54%) now use ad-supported subscription tiers, while AVOD/FAST adoption rose to 70% in Q4 2025, up five percentage points year over year. AVOD and FAST services now account for 13% of total viewing time.
• FAST audiences are watching more: The average FAST user now watches 7.5 channels, up more than two channels year over year. Pluto TV, Tubi, Roku Channel and Amazon Prime Video remain the leading FAST destinations.
• Discovery extends beyond apps: Smart TV home screens are becoming increasingly important gateways for content discovery and advertising, with owners spending 57% of their non-viewing time on the home screen.
• Consumers are prioritizing value: More than 35% of consumers routinely reassess subscriptions and viewing choices to balance cost, access and content availability.
• Fragmentation fuels discovery challenges: As the number of services grows, 40% of consumers report checking multiple apps before deciding what to watch.

The latest TiVo Video Trends Report (available here) surveyed 4,493 adults 18 and older living in the U.S. and Canada during the fourth quarter of 2025.

NEW YORK—They may have fallen short in the Western Conference finals, but the Oklahoma City Thunder topped the list of most-watched NBA teams in 2025-26, drawing 1.8 million viewers per game in the regular season, according to Nielsen viewing data.

The No. 2 team was the Los Angeles Lakers—the team that boasted the most-watched player, per Nielsen, in LeBron James—followed by the Eastern Conference champion New York Knicks.

Another participant in this week’s NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, trailed James as the league’s second-most-watched player.

Nielsen’s Spring 2026 “Tops of Sports’ report also noted double-digit growth in viewership across pro basketball (up 27%), NHL hockey (25%), auto racing (44%) and golf (12%*), fueled by new streaming and broadcast options, the massive popularity of global stars and changing ways that fans follow their favorite teams.

More specifically, the NBA’s average audience for regular-season games was up 27%, with the early rounds of the playoffs seeing a 10% bump. The league benefited from new media-rights deals that helped it reach younger viewers on streamers Prime Video, Peacock and ESPN Unlimited while still drawing larger audiences on broadcasters ABC and NBC and cable network ESPN.

The NHL is also experiencing a major boost, with average regular-season viewership up 25% to 540,000 viewers per game, and the first round of the playoffs up 77%, to 1.2 million viewers. The growth was bolstered by significant cultural moments involving hockey, such as the gold medal wins by the U.S. men’s and women’s ice hockey teams at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, Prime Video’s hit series “Off-Campus” and drama series “Heated Rivalry” on HBO Max, which notched nearly 2 billion streaming minutes in the first quarter, Nielsen said.

Followers of the NHL’s official TikTok account were up 83% this season, Nielsen reported. Further demonstrating America’s growing interest, the national TV debut of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) drew about 133,000 viewers to Ion, with 45% of the audience women 18-plus. In addition, demonstrating the buying power of hockey fans, NHL viewers rank No. 3 in median income among all sports watchers.

Last year’s Indianapolis 500 averaged more than 7 million viewers, the most in 17 years. The 2026 IndyCar season is already off to a strong start, with the first five races averaging 1.2 million viewers, 44% higher than the same period in 2025. Viewer interest is also rising, with 19% of respondents reporting being somewhat or very interested in IndyCar this March, up from 15% in March of 2023.

So far this year, the PGA Tour is averaging 1.5 million viewers. Efforts to evolve the franchise’s social media presence may be paying off, as Nielsen Scarborough data shows a steady increase in interest since 2023. *An influx of young Asian talent like Collin Morikawa, Akshay Bhatia, and Si Woo Kim looks to be helping to expand the tour’s audience, with Asian viewership to PGA Tour events up 12% so far this year.

RESTON, Va.—As media companies continue to grapple with the impact that AI is having on digital audiences and traffic, Comscore has released its first AI Intelligence Report for 2026 with new data highlighting a number of emerging trends.

The report shows the scale of breakout growth from Anthropic’s Claude platform. Based on Comscore’s panel data, the Q1 report revealed that Claude recorded 1,858% growth in desktop conversations between March 2026 and October 2025. While ChatGPT continues to lead the AI assistant category up 55% year over year, the report shows consumers are using a wider range of options.

The report also found that women are emerging as key drivers of mobile AI adoption across major generative AI tools. In March, women posted mobile index scores of 113 for ChatGPT, 123 for Copilot, and 118 for Gemini, the data showed. Men across those respective platforms had scores of 87, 77 and 82 over the same period, Comscore found. These findings further highlight the influence AI is having on a consumer’s on-the-go and day-to-day behavior.

“Comscore is providing some of the industry’s first visibility into AI-influenced intent behavior, as AI rapidly becomes the prime gateway for consumer awareness, attention, and decision-making,” said Smriti Sharma, executive vice president of analytics and managing director of Custom IQ at Comscore. “For brands and publishers, understanding how AI shapes discovery, which sources it references, and how those interactions translate into measurable business outcomes will be increasingly critical in the evolving digital landscape.”

Other key findings from the Comscore Q1 2026 AI Intelligence include:

• ChatGPT remained the category leader, reaching 244 million desktop conversations in March, up 55% year over year.
• ChatGPT also led in March with 87 million desktop visitors, compared to 44 million for Copilot and 30 million for Gemini.
• Claude reached 22 million desktop conversations in March, up 1,858% compared from October 2025, signaling growing consumer interest in alternative AI assistant experiences.
• In Q1 2026, AI assistant tools reached 36% of desktop users and 23% of mobile users.
• AI search is becoming a new discovery layer. U.S. desktop searches reached 76 billion in Q1 2026, up 10% versus Q1 2024, as AI search experiences became more integrated into traditional search behavior.
• AI is influencing high-consideration purchase journeys. In consumer credit cards, AI Overviews appeared alongside 46% of paid search ads in Q4 2025, up from 21% in Q2 2025. Over the past three quarters, approximately 25% of credit card applicants were exposed to AI Overviews, and roughly 5% applied directly from pages where AI Overviews appeared.
• Prompt behavior reveals how consumers refine decisions. In March 2026, users averaged 4.9 prompts per conversation on ChatGPT, 4.6 on Gemini and 7.1 on Copilot, showing that AI interactions are often multi-turn journeys rather than one-off queries.

The full AI Intelligence report for Q1 2026 is available for download here.

NEW YORK—A new study from S&P Global Market Intelligence is predicting that FIFA World Cup 2026, the first three-nation-hosted and expanded-format tournament, is projected to generate $9 billion in revenue, including $3.9 billion in media rights.

The record levels of revenue are being driven by an enlarged 48-team, 104-match schedule, premium US-hosted ticketing, and strengthened global media partnerships across major markets according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The researchers noted that FIFA World Cup 2026 introduces the first format expansion in 28 years, increasing participation from 32 to 48 nations and total matches from 64 to 104, while being hosted across 16 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico.

That will drive projected revenue of approximately $9 billion for FIFA in the 2026 World Cup year, anchored by about $3.9 billion in broadcasting rights and complemented by strong growth in marketing rights and a substantial uplift in hospitality and ticketing.

For the four year cycle between 2023 and 2026, total revenue will hit $13 billion, up from $6.5 billion between 2019 and 2022.

The report also predicts global viewership and engagement are expected to reach unprecedented levels, with FIFA forecasting 6 billion engagements across TV, streaming and digital platforms, building on the 1.5 billion viewers for the Argentina–France 2022 final and surging digital consumption. In addition, more than five million in-stadium attendees are anticipated.

Other key highlights include:

• Non-men’s World Cup properties significantly bolster FIFA’s commercial cycle, with the Women’s World Cup, youth tournaments and the FIFA World Club Cup elevated through deals such as a $1 billion rights contract with DAZN in 2025 and a new USA–Canada streaming agreement with Netflix from 2027
• Strategic four-year planning and tier 1 marketing rights allocation across cycles enable FIFA to lock in long-term commercial partners, while confidence in US, Canada and Mexico as hosts supports forecasts that ticketing and hospitality for 2026 will outperform Qatar 2022 and exceed World Cup 2030 ticketing by $950 million.

LONDON—A new study from Ampere Analysis highlights a pain point for consumers as streaming services push to increase profits—audiences are waiting longer than ever for the return of their favorite original shows.

The average gap between seasons of scripted originals has almost doubled from 12 months in 2020 to 21 months in 2025, according to Ampere.

The U.K. researcher also found that while audiences remain loyal to hit titles such as Apple TV’s “Severance” and Netflix’s “Wednesday,” longer waits could fuel more subscriber churn if platforms fail to keep viewers engaged.

At the 2022 height of the streaming boom, the study found, major platforms released some 599 seasons of scripted original shows, compared to a combined 591 from 2015 to 2019.. But the demand for high-end, blockbuster-style content has significantly extended production timelines. In 2020, major SVOD platforms took an average of 12 months to release new seasons of original scripted shows. By 2025, the average wait had almost doubled to 21 months.

"Many original shows build highly dedicated audiences that remain loyal despite increasingly long waits between seasons,” Ampere Senior Analyst Christen Tamisin, said. “However, streamers need to balance blockbuster production timelines against a steady flow of content. Extended gaps may generate anticipation around flagship titles, but they can also encourage audiences to cancel subscriptions and return only when major shows are back on screen."

Other key findings include:

• Original shows with gaps of over 30 months between seasons have achieved the highest engagement in the premiere month of the new season. Shows including Apple TV’s “Severance” and Netflix’s “Wednesday” generated almost twice the average engagement levels despite lengthy waits between seasons.
• Genre matters. Sci-fi and fantasly titles, often involving complex, high-budget productions, perform strongly despite long waits between seasons. By contrast, comedy audiences are less willing to tolerate extended gaps, while crime and thriller content performs consistently across a range of release patterns.
• The long gaps between seasons may actually lead to higher engagement. Existing audiences often rewatch earlier seasons to refresh their memories, while new audiences continue discovering shows during the gap between releases.
• Viewing of Netflix megahit “Stranger Things” rose by 300% in the second half of 2025 ahead of the release of its fifth and final season. Particularly strong viewing for Season 1 suggests both new viewers discovering the series and existing fans revisiting earlier episodes.
• Despite strong engagement around returning shows, long gaps create risk. In Q1 2026 in the U.S., 54% of respondents said they would be likely to cancel a service subscription if they were not using it often enough. Long waits between seasons leave streaming platforms vulnerable to churn and encourage audiences to subscribe only when their favorite shows return.

NEW YORK—The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) has released a paper that explores how all ad impressions are not created equal, and how signals like attention and context have become increasingly important as buyers rethink how media should be valued in a signal-constrained ecosystem.

The “Quality Matters: Navigating Quality in Media Buying and Measurement” report advances the thesis that Media Quality (MQ) signals—the non-user-specific attributes of an ad placement such as attention and situational context—are becoming a critical link for valuing media in an increasingly signal-constrained ecosystem.

Authored by ad tech veteran Erez Levin, strategist Gabriel Dorosz and CIMM Managing Director Jon Watts, the paper contends that quality signals can better distinguish mere delivery from meaningful exposures.

At a time when traditional metrics like viewability and completion rates offer only partial insight, particularly in CTV, the paper calls for clearer, industry-aligned definitions and frameworks for Quality in media buying and measurement. It also outlines how these signals can be operationalized to better align media cost with true value across outcomes.

Based on those findings, CIMM said it will launch a structured program of industry consultation to identify practical pathways for applying Media Quality in real-world media buying and measurement.

This initiative will engage advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad tech companies to surface key barriers, align on priorities, and define actionable next steps for advancing quality-based approaches across the marketplace, the group reported.

"CIMM’s mission is to illuminate emerging opportunities and challenges within the marketplace and help the industry make more informed decisions,” Watts said. “With CTV as the proving ground, this paper is intended as a catalyst for debate and action, providing the industry with the necessary structure and rigor to rethink the role and importance of quality signals in a fast-changing media marketplace. We believe this paper is an important contribution to the ongoing debate about media effectiveness and are excited to explore the opportunities to advance quality-based buying with the industry.”

Key takeaways from the paper include:

• Not all impressions deliver equal value: The attributes of a media placement such as visibility, context, and user experience materially influence outcomes and are currently underutilized in media valuation.
• Media Quality is becoming essential in a signal-constrained world: As identity-based targeting and attribution become less precise, Media Quality provides a scalable, privacy-safe way to assess the likely value of an impression.
• Effectiveness requires balancing short- and long-term outcomes: Over-optimizing for short-term performance can undermine brand growth and profitability. Media decisions must account for both.
• Better signals enable better pricing and allocation: Quality indicators such as attention and contextual factors can allow buyers to differentiate inventory and allocate budgets toward higher-value impressions.
• Quality is measurable and should be treated that way: Defining quality as “predictive efficacy” shifts it from a subjective concept to something that can be tested, validated, and optimized over time.
• Value exists on a spectrum, not a threshold: Moving beyond binary metrics like “viewable or not” can enable more precise alignment between cost and expected performance.
• CTV is the immediate opportunity: With wide variation in inventory quality and high CPMs, Connected TV is the clearest near-term use case for applying quality-based buying and measurement.

The paper was developed with input from marketing professionals and industry executives focused on attention and other quality metrics, both within and beyond CIMM.

To move Media Quality from theory to operational market practice, CIMM now plans to launch a structured industry initiative focused on practical implementation, validation, and standardization. The initiative will initially focus on connected TV (CTV), where variation in inventory quality, rising CPMs, and evolving programmatic infrastructure create the clearest near-term opportunity for quality-based buying and measurement.

The program will explore:

• The opportunities for greater alignment around the definitions, taxonomies, and core signals used to assess Media Quality across media buying and measurement workflows.
• The influence of Media Quality signals on campaign outcomes, pricing, allocation efficiency and long-term effectiveness.
• The need for practical guidance and operational frameworks to help stakeholders incorporate Media Quality into planning, buying, optimization, measurement, and reporting processes.
• The work will begin with a public industry webinar on June 8 introducing the paper and its findings, with ongoing working sessions facilitated through CIMM’s Innovation in Media Metrics Working Group.

CIMM expects to publish additional findings, implementation recommendations, and proposed industry frameworks later this year.

Download the full paper here.

NEW YORK—As the political debate over the amount of major sports on streaming platforms continues to heat up, a new analysis by Gracenote shows that sports has quickly become a foundational part of the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) content mix and now makes up 5% of overall programming on leading services.

That is a major change from just 18 months ago. In November 2024, sports made up just 1.4% of the Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+ catalogs, according to the inaugural Gracenote Data Hub analysis. In the past 18 months, these five providers have more than doubled that distribution to 3.3%. With HBO Max now included in Gracenote’s analysis, sports rises to 5% of all content. There are now nearly 38,500 sports shows, episodes, sports games and events on the leading global SVOD services.

HBO Max currently offers the most sports content among major global streamers tracked by the Gracenote Data Hub, accounting for 35% of available sports. At the individual game and event level, HBO Max offers 42% of sports content.

After HBO Max, the next most sports-heavy destinations are Amazon Prime Video (25%), Netflix (16%) and Disney+ (14%). Focusing on the individual game and event level, Paramount+ emerged as the leader in sports programming in the Q1 2026 Data Hub, released in February. Now, Paramount+ is home to 30% of games, events and sports show episodes.

Newly added HBO Max jumps ahead of Paramount+ by offering 42% of this sports content. Paramount Skydance’s impending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery should make the new combined company a key player for streaming sports content globally.

Another key finding from the Q2 update is the number of FAST channels has increased by 19% year-over-year. Entertainment, sports, news and reality are the most predominant channel genres, with news channels exhibiting the most annual growth (57%) year-over-year. At the same time, FAST serves as a significant distribution channel for live sports from all over the world. More than one-third of content on sports channels on FAST (37%) is live sports events.

The Gracenote Data Hub analysis was expanded to include HBO Max as of the just released Q2 2026 update. Going forward, the service’s programming will be tracked quarterly alongside that of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+.

Launched in November 2024, the Gracenote Data Hub provides insight into the content available on the now six leading global SVOD services and 2,120 FAST channels. The resource taps Gracenote Global Video Data, the industry’s most comprehensive trove of content intelligence powering advanced content search, discovery and recommendations capabilities. Updated quarterly, the resource tracks how leading SVOD catalogs and FAST channels are evolving over time and what these shifts signal.

For more information, visit Gracenote.com.

NEW YORK—As more government regulators and digital platforms start to require disclosure of AI-generated content, a new study from MediaScience found that labeling a video ad as AI-generated does not hurt how it performs.

The results showed no decline in any performance measure and increase in AI creation awareness across all four labeling conditions tested. For well-made ads, disclosure is not the threat the industry assumed it was, the researchers reported.

The study comes at a time when the regulatory pressure around AI in video advertising is ramping up.

New York's AI Transparency in Advertising law takes effect June 2026. The EU AI Act introduces binding disclosure obligations in August 2026.

These developments raised important questions for advertisers, who have been wondering if compliance and labelling would impact ad performance.

To address those issues, the study tested four labeling approaches across 900 U.S. respondents, reflecting frameworks under active consideration by U.S. and EU legislators: a text label in the first three seconds of the ad, a delayed text label from seconds four through six, a full-duration text label and a full-duration icon. Each was tested against a control with no labeling.

The data shows no adverse change in ad performance across any of the labeling conditions. Brand choice, ad memory, brand recognition, brand attitude, ad liking, and perceived production quality all showed no significant difference from the no-label control, the MediaScience survey found.

"There has been a lot of anxiety in the industry about what happens when you tell people an ad was made with AI," said Dr. Duane Varan, CEO of MediaScience. "The data gives us a clear answer: if the creative is good, disclosure does not hurt it. Advertisers do not need to be afraid of the label."

Displaying a disclaimer during the first three seconds increased viewers' awareness that the content was AI-generated by 28%. Running the label continuously throughout the ad increased awareness by 36%.

While 42% of respondents preferred the visual icon, it was the least effective at increasing AI awareness. On ad memory, text labels outperformed the control score of 36 across all conditions: 46 for the 3-second label, 40 for the delayed label, and 49 for full-duration. The icon scored 38, near the control.

The study also found that audiences feel the strongest need for AI labeling when it generates humans (60%), followed by animals (46%), product placement (45%), and voices (45%).

The study was conducted by MediaScience in collaboration with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at Adelaide University, a marketing science academic center, and MediaPET.ai, an AI video content platform developed by MediaScience.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—As consumers face mounting costs and higher inflation rates, with some major streaming services now costing more than $20 a month, new research indicates that consumers are paying more attention to bundles as a way of controlling their streaming costs.

Hub Entertainment Research’s annual “Best Bundle” study indicates that streaming prices are rising and consumers are feeling the pinch. Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max have all raised their prices $1-$2 a month since 2025, focusing consumers to be more budget-conscious.

In response, the Hub survey found that half of consumers "strongly agree" that budget is the main factor they consider when buying entertainment services, up significantly from 41% last year.

In addition, more consumers believe that streamers are raising their prices more often compared to last year (49% vs. 44%).

"Studios know that bundles deliver stronger retention and reduce churn, giving them huge incentives to get consumers to sign on to these stickier bundles," says Jason Platt Zolov, Senior Consultant at Hub. "While saving money is the key driver, reminding consumers of the expanded content options and simplified billing can help to grow these bundles into the ideal TV packages of tomorrow."

The survey also found that for consumers, streaming bundles are not just about saving money—they also expand viewing options and simplify billing. Nearly half of consumers (44%) cited the simplicity of having one bill for multiple subscriptions as a top value driver for bundles.

Being able to "try more services" (32%) and bringing together "popular & niche services in one plan" (20%) are also key value drivers.

But the researchers also cautioned that bundle awareness has room to grow.

At most, only half of consumers have heard of the major streaming bundles, led by the Disney and HBO Max bundle variations. Second-tier streamer and sports bundles are recognized by just 1 out of 5 consumers.

As Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery more towards merging their operations and streaming offerings, the research found that consumers are split on how they might buy a Paramount+ and HBO Max bundle in the future. A third (32%) say they would subscribe to both services separately if offered together as a discounted bundle

Only one-in-five (19%) say they would subscribe to a single, combined service that had HBO Max and Paramount+ content in one app.

These findings are from Hub’s 2026 “Best Bundle” report, based on a survey conducted among 1,600 US consumers ages 16-74 with broadband access. Interviews were conducted in March 2026. A free excerpt of the findings is available on Hub’s website.

LONDON—Global connected TV (CTV) advertising revenue will surge from $44 billion in 2025 to $81 billion by 2030, with CTV ad revenues expected to surpass traditional linear TV advertising during the 2030s, according to new research by Omdia.

The researchers also reported that Google, Amazon and Netflix will dominate the TV landscape in the upcoming years. As the fight to “own the living room” enters a new phase, Google, Amazon and Netflix are projected to capture 50% of the global connected TV advertising market by 2030.

“The battle for the living room is no longer only about streaming content,” said Maria Rua Aguete, head of media and entertainment at Omdia. “It is increasingly about controlling the platform, the advertising layer, the operating system, the data and ultimately the consumer relationship.”

Aguete noted that television is becoming one of the most strategic gateways for digital advertising, retail media and commerce integration, with tech companies increasingly competing to control the TV interface itself.

The findings also highlight how the center of power in television is rapidly shifting away from traditional broadcasting toward streaming platforms, TV operating systems and advertising ecosystems. By the end of the decade Omdia reports that:

• Google is forecast to command 26% of global CTV advertising revenue.
• Amazon is expected to account for 13%.
• Netflix is projected to represent 9%.
• Combined, Google, Amazon, and Netflix will account for half of the entire global CTV advertising market by 2030.

The shift comes as media companies, streamers, retailers and technology giants race to secure premium positioning in connected households. Amazon is leveraging Prime Video and retail media integration to expand its TV advertising footprint, while Netflix continues to scale its advertising business globally through its ad-supported tier. Google remains dominant through YouTube’s massive connected TV reach and broader advertising infrastructure.

Omdia expects several trends to accelerate the transformation of television advertising over the next five years:

• Expansion of ad-supported streaming services
• Convergence of retail media and television advertising
• Growth in programmatic and targeted TV advertising
• Increasing importance of TV operating systems and smart TV ecosystems
• Greater competition for consumer attention and platform ownership

Omdia also revealed that the European TV operating system landscape is shifting rapidly. According to the research firm, VIDAA is becoming Europe’s third-largest TV operating system this year after Android TV and Tizen, overtaking several established competitors as manufacturers seek greater ownership of the smart TV experience.

“CTV companies are at risk of losing incredibly valued ground to these tech giants and many cannot afford to do so as the hardware business becomes increasingly unprofitable,” added David Tett, principal analyst at Omdia. “Strategies are needed to fight for their own advertising revenues in the new-look landscape and avoid ceding too much ground to players such as Google and Amazon.”

As the political debate heats up over sports rights shifting to streaming services like Netflix, analysts at LightShed Partners have released data showing that streaming has actually lowered the cost of accessing all the games on NFL by breaking up traditionally costly pay TV bundles into more affordable packages.

"Yes, NFL games are now spread across more services than ever," Richard Greenfield, Brandon Ross and Mark Kelley at LightShed Partners argue. "But streaming competition has splintered the old cable bundle, giving consumers the ability to pay only for what they want. The $1,000-to-watch-the-NFL figure being thrown around by President Trump, regulators, and members of Congress is not grounded in reality."

Their data, shown below, indicates that fans can “watch every NFL game this season, a total of 272 games, for as little as ~$600, or under $3 per game. Strip out Sunday Ticket and you can catch all national matchups plus your local games for $217 with an antenna, or under $400 entirely via a la carte streaming,” they argue.

Their analysis shows that all the games could be watched on an a la carte bundle of streaming services for about $618, or accessed on some of the skinnier bundles available from a streaming pay TV service (vMPVD) like YouTube TV or DirecTV for $806.

All of those options are much cheaper than the traditional pay TV bundles costing about $1005 on Charter's Spectrum.

LightShed partners released their analysis at a time when President Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr complained about the high cost of streaming NFL games and the FCC has opened a probe into major sports rights.

In response to the FCC's request for comments on the issue, the NAB and a number of major broadcasters have complained about the complexity high cost of streaming sports on streaming services.

In meetings with FCC staff, the NFL has attempted to rebut those views by arguing that its current policy of distributing media rights “benefits fans and local broadcasters in many ways” and that attempts to end league’s antitrust exemption would mean “higher costs and confusion” for consumers.

"To be fair, watching the NFL is more complicated than it used to be, as no single service has everything," the analysts concluded. "But consumers now have real choice, and for those willing to navigate multiple apps, the savings are meaningful. It is also worth remembering that before 2023, the ONLY way to watch every NFL game was DirecTV with a satellite dish bolted to your house, unless you could prove one would not work at your location. Streaming has been unambiguously pro-consumer."

NEW YORK—A new study from Gracenote highlights how ongoing problems with data and measurement are limiting the shift of ad budgets from linear TV to CTV advertising.

The new "TV Audiences Have Shifted. Ad Dollars Have Not: The Need for Content Intelligence in the CTV Era," report finds that 86% of U.S. media planners would move more linear budgets to CTV if show-level targeting and reporting were available.

The reallocation would not stop at traditional TV. Sixty-five percent say they would also consider shifting spend from programmatic video and 63% from display, suggesting richer content intelligence could help CTV win a greater share of digital ad spend across the broader media mix.

"Buyers aren't asking for more complexity — they're asking for the same transparency they've relied on for decades in linear TV," said Ryan Moore, chief business officer at Gracenote. "Bringing show-level visibility to CTV gives the channel a clearer path to bigger budgets, not just from linear but across the digital video ecosystem. When buyers have the insight to validate placement quality and prove impact, CTV becomes more accountable and competitive."

The report spotlights a major blind spot in connected TV that Gracenote defines as the CTV Data Gap.

While advertisers have embraced CTV's audience targeting, the market still lacks a standardized view of the programming attributes behind each ad impression. Without that content layer, buyers lose confidence at every stage — from planning to post-campaign reporting. This uncertainty makes decision-makers hesitant to fund CTV at scale, the researchers reported.

They also argue that the Gracenote Content Graph helps close this gap by giving advertisers a source-validated view of CTV inventory, including descriptors such as genre, rating and language, along with program-level metadata and unique content identifiers.

Additional findings from the report include:

• 89% of media planners anticipate shifting more budget from linear TV to CTV over the next 12 to 24 months, underscoring CTV's continued momentum.
• 100% of programmatic traders say show-level transparency is very or extremely important for ensuring brand safety and inventory quality in CTV.
• 95% of programmatic traders agree that the absence of show-level signals prevents them from advocating for more CTV budget during planning.
• 80% of traders would shift budget from audience-targeted to contextually targeted CTV with actionable content signals.
• 47% of media planners cite limited show- or content-level data as a primary barrier to moving more spend into CTV.

Advertisers, agencies and media partners can download the full report here.

MIAMI—The first-quarter edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report highlights a number of important trends in broadband usage, including the finding that median downstream fiber consumption is 3.15 times that of DOCSIS-based cable broadband networks during the four-hour evening period.

The study found that the highest ratio between fiber and DOCSIS median downstream use during Q1 2026 was 3.6 times at 6 p.m.

The report also notes that the widest absolute gap during any daypart is at 8 p.m., when median downstream fiber usage is 1.346 GB for fiber and DOCSIS is at 0.456 GB—a difference of 0.890 GB.

Using data collected by OpenVault’s network-agnostic broadband optimization solutions, the 1Q26 OVBI examines how fiber is becoming a pivotal factor in new consumption trends. The report also uses data from Aispire, a provider of consumption-centric intelligence, to provide insights into applications driving growth, particularly in the upstream.

Among the 1Q26 OVBI findings:

• Power Users: More than one-third (33.8%) of fiber customers are consuming 1 Terabyte or more of data per month, an increase of 35.1% over the 25.0% of Power Users on DOCSIS networks.
• Downstream: Average downstream fiber usage was 837.0 Gigabytes, 26.1% more than the 664.0 GB recorded by DOCSIS subscribers.
• Usage Drivers: Aispire data shows that cloud sync—especially for ChatGPT reasoning models, MS365 Copilot, Apple Intelligence and agentic AI workflows—is the dominant upstream category at 15–16% of classified upload volume, and up to 25.5% of upload traffic at the 1 Gbps-plus tier.
• Residential vs. Non-Residential: Residential subscribers run at a 23-to-1 download-to-upload ratio, with video comprising 48% of downloads. Nonresidential subscribers run at a 7.3-to-1 ratio, with cloud connections accounting for 20% of uploads.

“While almost half of residential traffic is video downloads, non-residential subscribers use cloud services that require symmetric fiber. Thus, the two market segments should be modeled separately for capacity planning,” the report noted. Further, “as fiber footprints expand, operators should anticipate a structural uplift in overall network demand.”

The entire report is available here.

OpenVault executives will be at Fiber Connect 2026 May 17-20 in Nashville, Tenn., and at ANGACOM May 19-21 in Cologne, Germany. Meetings at both shows can be arranged via email.

OpenVault Vice President, Operations Lauren Trudeau will speak on the “Leading the Future: Where Innovation Meets Influence” panel on Wednesday, May 20 (3 p.m. CET) on the ANGACOM Innovation Stage.

PLANO, Texas—Tubi, The Roku Channel and Pluto TV are the three top-rated U.S. free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platforms by monthly users, according to Parks Associates’ just-released Top 10 U.S. FAST Services list, as the category shows continued momentum in subscriber growth and engagement.

Parks released its ranking as its quarterly surveys of 8,000 U.S. internet households finds 46% of those homes regularly use FAST services to watch long-form video content, and as FAST channels continue to grow in popularity.

Dominant FAST service Tubi has a strong head start among category players, the rankings showed, significantly outpacing its competitors. The Roku Channel secured the second position, followed by Pluto TV, highlighting strong engagement across leading platform-backed services. Other notable performers include Samsung TV Plus and XUMO Play, which continued to scale their audiences amid growing consumer demand for free streaming options.

"FAST services are no longer a secondary viewing option, they are a central part of the streaming landscape," Parks Director, Entertainment Research Michael Goodman said. "The gap between leaders like Tubi and the rest of the market underscores the importance of content breadth, distribution partnerships and user experience in driving viewer engagement."

Midtier services such as LG Channels, ViX, and Local Now demonstrate steady traction, while WatchFree+ (Vizio) and Sling Freestream round out the Top 10 FAST List.

The data reflects a broader industry shift as consumers increasingly turn to free, ad-supported alternatives amid subscription fatigue and rising streaming costs. With advertisers following audiences into FAST environments, the sector is poised for continued growth through 2026 and beyond.

Goodman will present and share Parks Associates during back-to-back sessions at TVOT (TV of Tomorrow) Montreal 2026 at The Alt Hotel. On May 21, he will present on "CTV Advertising I: What's Working, What Isn't, and Why" at 9:55 a.m. and "CTV Advertising II: What's Next?" at 10:40 a.m.

Parks’ Streaming Video Tracker is a subscription service featuring monthly market updates, quarterly subscriber estimates for multiple streaming services in North America and access to an exclusive service portal where subscribers can search and view the data.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) has moved from the margins of the streaming landscape to the center of how Americans watch TV, according to a new study from Hub Entertainment Research.

The "FAST: Full Throttle” report finds that many U.S. TV viewers now use FAST services, and roughly half of those users now describe FAST as "must-have." The findings reframe free streaming as more than a down market compromise and reveal that FAST viewers are remarkably similar to the paying streaming customer.

“‘Free’ is a reason for people to try a service, but it’s not enough to create real engagement over the long term,” said Jon Giegengack, principal at Hub and one of the authors of the study. “However, this research shows the library content most FASTs are built around is actually a selling point for many users, as is the low-friction user experience of services that often don’t even require you to create an account. As the cost of streaming — and everything else — keeps rising, free streaming will keep gaining ground.”

Other key findings from Hub’s inaugural FAST report include the fact that FAST is now a fixture, not a fallback.

A majority of TV viewers (55%) have used at least one FAST service, and roughly half of regular FAST users (46%) say those services are a “must-have” part of the entertainment ecosystem. Use is also sticky: 28% of FAST users say they watch every day.

In addition, FAST viewers aren't who the industry thought they would be, the study finds.

Free services were expected to appeal mainly to consumers who don’t care enough about TV to pay for it. The data says otherwise. FAST users spend just as much time watching TV: FAST viewers report watching about 24 hours of TV per week, statistically in line with the 22 hours watched by those who don’t use FAST platforms.

They also spend almost as much money: FAST users estimate they spend about $75 per month on TV services, only slightly less than non-FAST users ($84). Plus, 60% say they use FAST as a complement to their paid services, rather than a replacement for paid services.

These users are just as invested in TV: 67% say watching TV is an important part of their lives – the same percentage as among those who only use paid sources of TV.

“Free” is the biggest draw — but it’s not the only one. When asked to name the benefits of free streaming compared to other kinds of services, 87% of viewers mention the fact that they don’t cost anything to use. However, a near-frictionless experience (many FASTs don’t require a login at all) and the depth of the library content are also major factors.

Quick to access (40%) is important: Unlike pure SVOD services, viewers can find live streaming shows playing as soon as they open the app. To add, many free services don’t even require an account.

Easy to discover (33%): A third of users say that it’s easier to find new things to watch on FAST services than on other platforms.

Nostalgia viewing (32%): Free streaming skews more toward library content, and for many consumers, that’s the appeal: 46% of FAST users say they most often watch older shows, whether titles they’ve never seen or favorites they’re rewatching.

The researchers also found that FAST is a bridge between traditional TV and creator content — especially YouTube.

YouTube — once a home for cat videos — now sits atop the Nielsen Gauge as the most-watched streaming platform on TV sets. FAST services may be how traditional media companies follow viewers into that new kind of TV experience.

Free streaming users are more likely to watch YouTube: 85% of FAST users are also regular viewers of YouTube, compared with 66% of those who don’t use free streaming.

They’re more engaged with creator content in general: Half (48%) of free-streaming users say that creator content is a “must-have” part of their entertainment diet, compared with only 32% of non-users.

Free-streaming viewers are younger: 38% of FAST users are under the age of 35, compared to just 25% of those who don’t use free streaming.

Creator content can attract new users to long-form TV platforms: 59% of FAST users and 36% of non-users say they would try a new free streaming service if it offered creator content, they follow alongside traditional shows and movies.

“FAST is becoming the bridge between traditional television and the creator economy, and platforms like Tubi are proving that the model works,” said Yuliyana Beleva, Senior Research Analyst at Hub. “Viewers want simplicity, which is why a unified platform where creator content lives alongside traditional long-form TV is the natural next step. Creator content is no longer just a social media story — it's shaping the next chapter of free streaming.”

These findings are from Hub’s 2026 “FAST: Full Throttle” study, based on a survey conducted in February 2026 among 3,009 U.S. TV consumers — 2,500 monthly FAST users and 509 non-users. All respondents were age 16–74, watched at least five hours of TV per week, and had high-speed internet at home. Five qualitative in-depth interviews with monthly FAST users were also conducted in April 2026 to provide behavioral context to the survey results. A free excerpt of the findings is available on Hub’s website.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports is reporting that it averaged 4.9 million viewers through its first 13 games of the NBA Playoffs on NBC and Peacock, which it said was up 58% vs. comparable coverage last year from April 19 to 28 and the most-watched for comparable windows since 1996.

The comparison is to games airing on other outlets because this is the first time in 24 years that NBC Sports is presenting the NBA Playoffs.

NBC Sports’ second week of NBA Playoffs coverage, April 25-28, averaged 4.9 million viewers for seven games across NBC and Peacock, the most-watched for comparable windows since 2001.

Following are viewership* highlights for NBC Sports’ NBA Playoffs coverage from Saturday, April 25, through Tuesday, April 28 (all viewership is Total Audience Delivery across NBC and Peacock unless noted):

• Thunder-Suns Game 3 (Saturday, April 25, 3:30-6:08 pm ET) averaged 3.3 million viewers, up 64% vs. the comparable game last year and making it the most-watched game in the comparable window since 2014. It peaked at 4.5 million viewers.
• Knicks-Hawks Game 4 (Saturday, April 25, 6:08-9:00 pm ET) peaked at 5.8 million viewers and averaged 5.3 million, up 58% vs. the comparable game last year and making it the most-watched game in the comparable window since 2001.
• Celtics-76ers Game 4 (Sunday, April 26, 7:00-9:38 pm ET) peaked at 7.0 million viewers and averaged 6.3 million for the game, making it the most-watched game of the 2026 NBA Playoffs to date and the most-watched First Round Game 4 in primetime ever.
• Lakers-Rockets Game 4 (Sunday, April 26, 9:38pm-12:20am ET) peaked at 7.2 million viewers -- the highest peak of the 2026 NBA Playoffs to date – and averaged 6.2 million for the game, up 128% vs. the comparable game last year and making it the second-most-watched game of the playoffs to date.
• The two-game average of 6.2 million viewers for Sunday, April 26 ranks as the most-watched second Sunday of the NBA Playoffs since 2002.
• Pistons-Magic Game 4 (Monday, April 27, 8:00-10:59 pm ET) peaked at 6.8 million viewers and averaged 5.4 million, up 155% vs. the comparable game last season and making it the most-watched Round 1 Game 4 on a weekday ever.
• Timberwolves-Nuggets Game 5 (Monday, April 27, 10:59pm-1:21am ET) peaked at 5.2 million viewers and averaged 3.9 million.
• Hawks-Knicks Game 5 (Tuesday, April 28, 8:07-10:52 pm ET) peaked at 4.3 million viewers and averaged 3.8 million viewers. It was the most-watched sporting event of the night.

NBC Sports also streamed two games on Peacock and NBCSN from April 25-28.

Source: Nielsen Big Data + Panel, and digital data from Adobe Analytic

Parks Associates’ latest streaming video research highlights what it is calling a “new era of streaming scale” with data showing that Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) would extend the combined company’s reach to 57% of all US internet households.

This deal would put it on par with the four streaming giants, Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Disney, which each reach nearly 60% of all consumers via their various platforms and services.

According to the latest data, nearly two-thirds (64%) of US internet households use Netflix, making it the most widely adopted streaming ecosystem. Amazon follows closely, with 61% of households engaging across its portfolio, including Prime Video and MGM+, while YouTube’s suite of services reaches 61% of households as well. Disney’s multi-platform strategy, including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, drives adoption among 58% of households.

“There is a clear shift in how consumers engage with streaming content,” said Michael Goodman, Director, Entertainment Research, Parks Associates. “Unless you are Netflix, it’s no longer about a single flagship service. Success increasingly depends on building a broad ecosystem of complementary offerings that keep viewers within a single brand family.”

Parks Associates provides monthly updates on the streaming ecosystem through multiple research services, including the Streaming Video Tracker. This research service delivers monthly reports on market and consumer trends, quarterly estimates on subscriber growth, and ongoing analysis on distribution strategies (e.g., film, broadcast, pay TV, SVOD, FAST, AVOD) and business models (e.g., licensing, subscription, advertising, transaction).

Parks Associates data also shows strong performance from hybrid and legacy media conglomerates. Fox, Comcast (Peacock), and Roku continue to build meaningful engagement through niche and free streaming platforms.

The findings highlight several ongoing major trends shaping the streaming industry:

• Ecosystem Advantage: Companies offering multiple services under one brand are better positioned to retain and grow audiences.
• Aggregation Strategy: Bundling across SVOD, AVOD, and live content is becoming a key competitive differentiator.
• Discovery Innovation: Improved navigation, recommendations, and AI-driven personalization will be critical to reducing churn.
• Parks Associates expects further consolidation and deeper integration across streaming portfolios as competition intensifies.

The Streaming Video Tracker is a comprehensive tool that tracks the streaming video services industry. This research provides extensive profiling for streaming video services in the US and Canada. It also estimates subscribers, viewers, and transactional users, including those that do not publicly release customer figures.

More information is available at https://www.parksassociates.com.

Pinterest has launched a new push into CTV advertising with the launch of tvScientific by Pinterest, which allows, for the first time, advertisers to reach Pinterest’s exclusive audiences on the biggest screen in the house, the connected TV.

The launch is notable as it is the first major offering to come out of Pinterest’s acquisition of TVScientific, which closed in February, and represents a major expansion of Pinterest’s ambitions to capitalize on the rapid growth of CTV advertising.

tvScientific by Pinterest brings together Pinterest’s unique first-party audiences and tvScientific’s performance advertising platform. The integration allows advertisers and agencies to target Pinterest’s outside of Pinterest on CTV and in streaming TV environments.

“Pinterest brings a distinct opportunity, with more than 600 million monthly active users and growing,” explained Lee Brown, chief business officer of Pinterest. “Because of how users search and shop on the platform, we can give advertisers new ways to reach people at every stage of the shopping journey, from discovery to buying, both on and off Pinterest.”

The launch comes at a time when streaming platforms have become a primary way consumers watch TV, movies, and other content, which has driven rapid growth in CTV advertising. Last year, CTV ad spend reached $32.45 billion in the United States and is expected to surpass linear TV ad spending, to more than $45 billion by 2028, Pinterest said.

More specifically, Pinterest reported that tvScientific by Pinterest is the first ad platform to offer direct access to Pinterest’s high-intent audiences for CTV campaigns. Advertisers can use Pinterest’s commercial intent signals to reach audiences across premium inventory on the biggest screen in the house, while also leveraging tvScientific's AI-powered optimization technology.

As a result, brands can reach their target audience at scale and drive measurable performance. On average, when tvScientific AI is enriched with Pinterest’s high-intent signals, it leads to a 27% increase in outcomes driven per $100 in spend, with purchases up 65%, Pinterest reported.

"The real opportunity for advertisers is turning consumer intent into action, and Pinterest's signals are unique because they reflect what people are planning, not just what they've already done," said Jason Fairchild, CEO of tvScientific by Pinterest. "Every month, there are more than 80 billion monthly searches on Pinterest and by bringing those signals into tvScientific, advertisers can run more precise CTV campaigns and optimize toward the business outcomes that matter most."

Early testing from advertisers demonstrates tvScientific by Pinterest’s scale and performance. For example, LG expanded its existing audience approach and delivered a 73% increase in unique households reached with access to Pinterest audiences. This additional reach drove a 24% lift in net new customers.

Pinterest said that this launch is the first step in a broader vision for a unified cross-screen advertising experience.

For more information, sign up for early access or sign their webinar.