Welcome to the New Living Room: 57% of Video Ads Now Play on TVs

Video monetization company FreeWheel is calling it the "new living room." In its Q2 2018 Video Monetization Report, the company notes that 57 percent of all premium digital video ad views in the U.S. now play on the living room TV, either through OTT devices or set-top box video on-demand. In the European Union, the number is 30 percent.

This year's Upfront season showed that advertisers and publishers are confident about the future for linear TV and digital, the report says. That's why they're increasingly working to join these two channels. The race is on for better targeting and measurement tools. Getting that kind of performance means combining data sets, which is why several partnerships in the U.S. and Europe were announced in the first half of this year.

The growth of the new living room comes down to viewership and digital advancements. Marketers are enjoying the combination of TV's reach with digital's targeting and attribution. For David Clark, FreeWheel's general manager, this is a marketing trifecta.

"TV—which now includes premium video content distributed via an array of digital platforms—has never been stronger as an advertising channel," Clark says "The ability to build targeted awareness with TV at the top of the funnel, then measure the impact of that exposure across devices, is now a reality."

Other numbers from the report:

• 14% of Q2 ad views were placed programmatically


• 33% of ad views were in live video


• 66% of live video viewing was for sports


• 11% of ads repeated one or more times within an episode


• Premium video views in Q2 grew by 31 percent year-over-year

Report data comes from advertising collected through the FreeWheel platform, and includes views for set-top box VOD, OTT, desktops, phones, and tablets. It doesn't include linear viewing. For more, download the full report for free (registration required).

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net