Research and analysis

Stakeholder Forum Papers: Television - Revenue streams on broadcast and IPTV

Published 23 June 2026

A paper independently produced by the TV Sector Working Group of the Stakeholder Forum

Television advertising plays a central role in building long-lasting consumer brands. Audio-visual ads can be very impactful and create an emotional pull, which is then amplified when seen within TV’s immersive programming environment. As viewing transitions from broadcast to IP (internet protocol) delivery an increasing proportion of this advertising will be delivered via IP.

Advertisers value digital TV advertising, and in a digital terrestrial television (DTT) household are able to reach their audience on a broadcaster’s channel via DTT or via IP or through the channel’s app delivered via IP. In addition, that same advert could be viewed on the TV set while watching a video sharing platform (VSP) such as YouTube, a Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) channel or on an ad tier on a Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) service. IPTV advertising is more complex than broadcast, with different delivery, measurement and trading methods. Broadcasters compete for viewers and advertising against each other, but also now the global tech giants and TV platforms. This paper provides an overview of the benefits and challenges of IPTV advertising for broadcasters.

1. For advertisers, broadcasters’ digital TV ad propositions offer much greater targeting capabilities, but not as much as other online video propositions

This section draws from previous reports published by Enders Analysis on TV advertising, which were put together through desk research and meetings with advertisers, agencies and other stakeholders.

Despite declining audiences, an advertiser’s broadcast TV campaign can deliver high reach, with TV remaining the only medium which can consistently deliver the same message simultaneously to millions of existing and potential new customers. Any so-called ‘wastage’ can be beneficial for advertisers, and could be considered ‘bonus viewing’ (which an advertiser gets for free) and it’s these viewers, who may become customers in the future, who drive some of the longer-term effectiveness of broadcast advertising.

For advertisers, there are many benefits that TV delivered via IP has over broadcast TV:

• Addressability: advertisers can target viewers based on personal IDs (these may identify an individual based on logged in users or device IDs, with IP addresses used to determine geographical location). Broadcaster data is matched with advertiser data using secure and privacy-compliant clean room technology.

• Enhanced targeting: advertisers can choose more sophisticated targeting variables including more demographics, geotargeting (post code, drive-time to store), viewing preferences (shows, talent, genre), shopper/buyer characteristics (e.g., having bought into a category or a brand before), lifestage variables (e.g., having recently moved home). This works either through broadcasters’ first party data (collected when a user registers for a service) or by appending third party data sets^{[footnote 1]}, such as those sold by data companies like Experian or Dunn Humby.

As TV viewing transitions from broadcast to IP delivery, more inventory will become addressable, including within the live linear stream, so that broadcasters/sales houses’ ad tech will be able to effectively weigh up the audience supply, advertiser demand and yield in real time to get the most appropriate balance of mass reach and addressability for advertisers. We note that hyper targeting may drive short-term efficiencies but at the expense of longer-term advertising effectiveness.

Because of this addressability and greater targeting capability, digital TV advertising reduces the barriers to entry for many companies. For example, new-to-TV advertisers can test TV with small budgets, while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or companies with highly discrete target audiences can run campaigns with much greater granularity than is possible when buying broadcast.

Advertisers can reach younger audiences and light TV viewers through digital TV advertising (in 2024 over 40% of Channel 4’s viewing by those under 35 was through its own player), adding incremental reach for advertisers. For these audiences that are hard to reach on broadcast TV, it can be more cost-effective for advertisers to reach them via broadcaster video on demand (BVOD) (because linear advertising pricing is dynamic and based on supply and demand), but for more mainstream audiences, such as Adults and ABC1s BVOD may be less cost-effective than broadcast TV.

Broadcasters can offer more innovative formats through digital such as being able to pause ads, interactive ads and different time lengths allowing for more creativity from advertisers. In addition, digital advertising can be bought through self-serve demand-side platforms (DSPs) (self-serve platforms automating the buying process) including PlanetV and DV360, which means clients can buy directly, and at very short notice rather than going through a media agency.

However, IP delivery has brought with it many challenges for broadcasters, not least of which is that they are competing for audiences and therefore advertising revenues on the TV set against other online video players, whether that be the ad tiers of SVOD services such as Netflix, the FAST services available on TV platforms (e.g. Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Fire’s OS) and VSPs, such as YouTube. Across 2024, under 34s watched more YouTube on the TV set than to any single commercial broadcaster.

For advertisers, while YouTube and other online video propositions (OLV) may not offer the same quality (or highly regulated brand safe) environment as broadcasters, advertising within OLV is likely to be cheaper—albeit within arguably less premium inventory—than either broadcasters’ digital or broadcast feeds.

While broadcasters’ digital TV ad propositions offer much greater targeting than traditional TV advertising, it is inferior to, say, that of Google which has very large volumes of user data across its many properties, including Search, Gmail and YouTube. The tech platforms of Meta, Amazon and Google offer extensive tools for targeting and measuring campaigns based on advertisers’ own data, with results being measurable in real time. For advertisers this measurement and ease of booking compares very favourably to that of television, albeit with no guarantee of a premium environment.

For viewers, broadcast TV currently offers a more consistent ad-load (i.e., in digital, as a result of constrained supply, the same viewer is shown an ad multiple times in order to deliver the campaign) and user experience (when ads are inserted digitally, the user experience can be stilted/ jerky, in comparison to broadcast). However, over time broadcasters should be able to overcome these issues, leading to a more seamless experience.

2. Differences between trading of digital TV and broadcast TV advertising

Broadcast linear TV advertising in the UK focuses on mass reach of broad demographic targeting around pre-scheduled slots, while digital TV advertising leverages programmatic technology, granular audience targeting and real-time flexibility. The two approaches are increasingly complementary; many advertisers use a mix of both to achieve their marketing objectives.

Figure 1: Differences between broadcast / linear and digital advertising

	Broadcast/linear	Digital/BVOD
Delivery	Ads are tied to scheduled programming. Live or time-shifted (recorded) viewing.	Ads are delivered to user profiles. Captures both live and on-demand viewing.
Trading mechanic	Advertisers predominantly agree a ‘share of broadcast revenue” commitment to each broadcaster.	Advertisers predominantly agree a ‘volume of revenue/activity’ commitment to each broadcaster.
Flexibility	Longer lead times as campaigns booked in advance. Limited ability to change.	Ads can be purchased on-the-fly and adjusted mid-flight based on performance. Frequency capping: control over how often viewers see an ad.
Ad load	Code on the Scheduling of Television Advertising (COSTA) rules apply. PSB channels -average of 7 minutes per hour across the day; 8 minutes per hour between 18:00 and 23:00. On all other channels an average of 9 minutes per hour across the day. No channel can have more than 12 mins in any hour.	Ad load per hour flexible. Balance of advertiser demand, impression supply and user experience.
Pricing	Based on CPT. The cost to generate a thousand ad impacts. Each impact is one viewer within the target audience seeing an ad once. The price is floating and is determined (set by the market) at the end of the month based on ad demand and ad supply in that period.	Based on CPM. The cost to deliver a thousand impressions. Each impression is one ad being delivered to one device. The price is fixed and agreed in advance.
Measurement	Uses a BARB panel-based audience measurement system. Reflects actual audience viewing based on sampling and statistical projections. Campaigns are planned and verified via BARB.	Uses ad server data via Broadcasters systems. Campaigns can be planned via a BARB planning system (Advanced Campaign Hub) and verified via C-Flight
Targeting Capabilities	Broad demographic targeting (e.g., ‘ABC1 Adults’). Adverts reach the target audience and all others watching ad break (known as over show or wastage). Focus on mass reach rather than personalisation. Regional campaigns available.	Hyper-targeted: Uses first-party data, third-party data, and geolocation to deliver ads to specific household or individual profiles. Adverts intended to only reach stated target household or individual profiles.
Unique selling point (USP)	Proven effectiveness for campaigns targeting mass-market audiences. Broad and fast ad reach and brand awareness (long and short term)	Can deliver brand awareness but also suited for precision targeting, incremental reach (beyond linear for niche audiences) and performance-based campaigns

3. The value chains of connected TV (CTV) advertising

Today a viewer in a DTT household could see an advert on their TV on a broadcaster’s channel or its app that has been delivered via DTT or via IP. In addition, the viewer could see the same advert on their TV while watching YouTube, or a video on demand (VOD) service on the connected TV.

The diagram below sets out a simplified view of the value chains involved in four scenarios as follows:

A. Linear broadcasting advertising, delivered via DTT and viewed on broadcast channels such as ITV1 and C4;

B. Broadcaster VoD (BVOD), delivered over IP and watched on connected TV (CTV), booked through TV industry-owned private marketplaces (e.g., Planet V);

C. Online video (OLV), bought through one of the platforms’ DSPs, and where the supplied inventory is owned by the platform (Google-YouTube, Meta, Amazon);

D. BVOD or OLV bought programmatically through an open demand side platform (DSP) (e.g., The Trade Desk), where broadcaster inventory may be unbundled with inventory from many other publishers and where the buyer cannot control the context in which it is bought.

The complexity of the value chain is partly driven by the technology that governs how the content is delivered (e.g., DTT, IP), and partly by how the advertising is bought – i.e., as in Scenario B, through a ‘private marketplace’, or, as in Scenario D, through a programmatic auction on an open demand-side platform like The Trade Desk.

In general, the complexity of the value chain increases when the advertising that is bought is programmatic because many adtech vendors (data, verification etc.) can query and modify the bid stream from the auction.

In 2020, PWC/ISBA’s study of programmatic supply chains found that the 15 advertisers they studied had nearly 300 distinct supply chains to reach 12 publishers^{[footnote 2]}. In contrast to the programmatic value chain, the linear broadcast/ DTT value chain (Scenario A) is much simpler - involving only the advertiser, media agency and broadcaster.

Figure 2: Digital advertising value chain, four scenarios

Advertising type	Advertiser (e.g. P&G, JustEat)	Media Agency (e.g. Mindshare)	Data vendors (e.g. Experian)	Tech/verification vendors (e.g. DoubleVerify)	DSP (e.g. DV360, The Trade Desk)	SSP (e.g. OpenX, Pubmatic)	Ad server	Publisher & inventory (e.g. C4, ITV)
A. Linear Broadcast - DTT	Campaign media budget set by advertiser	Media agency plans & buys campaign usually as part of trading deal with TV sales team	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH CARIA OR PRISMA	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH CARIA OR PRISMA	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH CARIA OR PRISMA	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH CARIA OR PRISMA	—	Commercial broadcaster inventory only, on their linear channels
B. BVOD bought / booked through PlanetV / Caria - IP / CTV	Campaign media budget set by advertiser	Media agency plans/buys through TV-specific PMP (flat CPMs, not auction), usually included in trading deal	Buyer can augment targeting with data points from range of vendors - cost reflected in CPM	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH EITHER PLANETV OR CARIA	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH EITHER PLANETV OR CARIA	CAMPAIGN BOOKED THROUGH EITHER PLANETV OR CARIA	Each broadcaster has a proprietary adserver or integrations with third-party ad server	Commercial broadcaster inventory only around content on broadcaster-owned streaming services content
C. Programmatic OLV bought from platform e.g. YouTube / Amazon / Meta - IP / CTV	Campaign media budget set by advertiser	Campaign bought through open programmatic platform in auction by agency or direct by client	Platform supplies targeting signals based on its data - quality & volume of signals drives higher auction prices	Various vendors may provide additional services e.g. data verification	Campaign bought and booked through platform-owned DSP	Campaign implemented through platform-owned SSP	Each broadcaster has a proprietary adserver or integrations with third-party ad server	Platform-owned inventory only, some control over context but not for auction-bought programmatic
D. Programmatic OLV & BVOD bought through open DSP IP/CTV	Campaign media budget set by advertiser	Campaign bought through open programmatic platform in auction by agency or direct by client	Targeting signals supplied by range of vendors - quality of signals drives higher auction prices	Various vendors may provide additional services e.g. data verification	Campaign bought and booked through DSP - may involve multiple publishers	Campaign passed to SSP which then implements across multiple publishers	Each broadcaster has a proprietary adserver or integrations with third-party ad server	Inventory from range of publishers incl some broadcasters; little control over context
Indicative % Media budget taken	100%	-7%	-3%	-3%	-9%	-9%	-2%	67%

Advantages of the more complex/ programmatic value chains:

• Self-serve DSPs: these put the advertiser/agency in control. They are able to plan, buy and implement campaigns at all times (n.b., this is also true in Scenario B).

• Data signals: advertisers can access extensive data and signals to enhance the targeting of their campaigns (this is also true in Scenario B, although to a lesser extent).

• Multiple sources of inventory: advertisers can implement campaigns across multiple publishers using only one DSP.

• Added-value adtech: advertisers can access added value services such as data verification or services designed to optimise programmatic buying (which reduce campaign-related carbon emissions).

Disadvantages of the more complex/programmatic value chains:

• Viewer experience: in general, viewer experience deteriorates with increased complexity. This is because, unlike in linear broadcast, where the ads are ‘stitched-in’ to the content and appear seamlessly in the ad breaks, digital ads are being ‘called’ by ad servers and placed in near real-time, inevitably leading to some ‘friction’, which the viewer might experience as loading delays, or ‘glitches’.

• Reduced ‘working’ media budgets: each intermediary in the value chain takes a proportion of the advertiser’s original media budget, thereby decreasing the proportion of the budget that reaches the publisher and which can be activated as ‘working media’. PwC found that 67% of the media budget for video reached publishers (decreasing to 51% of the budget for all programmatic advertising in 2020 and 65% in 2022)^{[footnote 3]}.

• Lack of transparency: the more complex the value chain, the harder it is to track where the money goes. In 2020 PwC found that 15% of media budgets could not be accounted for through the supply chain^{[footnote 4]}. When the study was repeated in 2022, this had reduced, as a result of improvements made by the programmatic industry. The study also noted that PMPs (as in Scenario B, where BVOD is bought through a PMP like Planet V) are more transparent than open programmatic platforms, with the delta reduced to 1%^{[footnote 5]}.

• Mixed inventory quality: programmatic campaigns are implemented across a wide range of inventory from publishers of mixed quality. Advertising could end up on BVOD platforms, on YouTube, or on CTV FAST channels. This is important because different media contexts affect the way in which advertising is perceived. This is known as ‘signal strength’ and is correlated with campaign effectiveness. TV has around 50% higher ‘signal strength’ than video sharing platforms or social media^{[footnote 6]}.

• Brand safety: when advertising is bought programmatically, advertisers cannot control where their advertising is placed. Hence brand safety is compromised if ads are placed around or near inappropriate content.

4. DTT broadcasters can realise benefits in delivering advertising via IP but also face challenges

The transition to digital allows viewers flexibility to watch broadcaster content when they want, as the viewer is no longer tied to the linear schedule. Broadcasters’ have invested significantly in their players to offer broad libraries of content, which can include catch-up programming, series box sets, episodes pre-broadcast and third party content never shown on their channels. Broadcasters can launch their own FAST channels accessible via their own players or other third party platforms. All of this IP delivered content is monetisable through advertising.

In addition to the wider range of content there are benefits for broadcasters associated with advertising via IP, which are closely linked to the benefits to advertisers detailed on p1. Broadcasters can target audiences more effectively, produce interactive ads, use auction-based pricing, and deploy private marketplaces (PMPs).^{[footnote 7]} These innovations lower barriers to entry, provide more granular ROI, and deliver value to advertisers and broadcasters.

It is also true that—where rights positions allow—delivering content over IP also provides revenue generating opportunities via TVOD and SVOD activity: IP delivery allows rights holders to exploit content beyond primary and secondary windows. However, this should not necessarily be seen as incremental value – there is an obvious displacement effect here from older transactional media – DVD, pay-TV etc. The advent of FAST channels has facilitated the entry of a new set of players (e.g., producers such as All3Media have entered into advertising financed TV).

Taken in the round, however, these new methods have not corresponded to net commercial gains for broadcasters nor have they helped to entirely offset the decline in traditional advertising revenues^{[footnote 8]} - indeed, in Ofcom’s recent Review of Public Service Media, it concluded that:

PSBs may also struggle to replace their traditional income streams with new sources of revenue to the same scale, as they expand their digital strategies and increasingly compete with SVOD services and VSPs for advertising revenue.^{[footnote 9]}

Digital advertising is also not without its own significant challenges – these can be distilled into two themes: competition and cost.

Competition and disintermediation:

A critical point about the arrival of the internet as a medium more broadly is that it opens up the UK advertising market to global competition and breaks down barriers between different media. The “privileged” access to living rooms that came, for example, with terrestrial spectrum is nearly over.

This relationship was admittedly first changed as penetration of pay-TV platforms (e.g., Sky, Virgin) grew in the UK, and broadcasters had to negotiate the commercial ambitions of pay-TV intermediaries as well as their own. However, these players remain national, broadcast-centric platforms, are more attune to the national circumstances in which they operate and agree broadly helpful terms with UK broadcasters. They are distinct from global, online platforms who may apply terms or approaches set by their businesses at a global level.

Anyone can now offer advertising financed content, video sharing or social media services via IP to anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the UK. These are in direct competition for attention and revenue with broadcast players. The global economic models of some of the biggest internet players are very different from (and offer some significant advantages over) purely national players.

The internet is a world of huge variety and choice, but it is also widely recognised as a world where, in part because of that bewildering choice, intermediaries seek to guide and shape choice, often with commercial incentives in that process. In particular, there is significant competition for access to, and prominence on, IP platform UIs. Those same UI operators are also at the same time seeking to monetise that access and prominence via advertising on their platforms. Some of the trends we see in this space are below.

• Platforms data/metadata and integrated ad tech

  • Platforms increasingly use audience data to grow their own ad businesses^{[footnote 10]};

  • Platforms use 3rd party metadata to power content discovery (can replace broadcaster metadata);

  • Platform ad technology can prevent broadcasters from managing their own ad sales relationships

  • Revenue shares and other marketing contributions are often requested by platforms

    • YouTube’s standard terms require 45% of inventory/revenue

    • Amazon and many TV platforms/OS standard terms are 30% of inventory/revenue

• Platforms content discovery/surfacing

  • Platforms invest in their own content; their apps and services are made more prominent as a result;

  • Platforms may priority FAST services where they control advertising/data

  • The algorithms promoting and surfacing content are opaque and managed by OS / UI providers; these can change quickly.

Cost:

The cost of delivering services (and hence advertising) over IP has variable costs which increase with volume of viewing (so for every additional hour viewed, net costs increase^{[footnote 11]}), as viewing increases and more ads are delivered. This is not true in DTT/broadcast – costs are broadly fixed/stable which presents different challenges^{[footnote 12]}.

Advertising over IP is also increasingly delivered by a complex value chain of intermediaries which seek a return from the ad ecosystem in exchange for providing access to viewers. From the broadcasters’ perspective, these may be viewers already in their ecosystems but accessing particular content in a different place (e.g. YouTube). The cost of reaching them is therefore duplicated.

5. IPTV enables TV manufacturers/platform owners to generate revenues via CTV advertising on video sharing platforms and FAST platforms. What are the benefits for the TV platform owners, content owners and viewers?

The arrival of IPTV has enabled connected TV manufacturers and operating system providers and other platform owners to develop direct relationships with audiences (by contrast, there were no economic intermediaries to DTT^{[footnote 13]}), enabling them to generate ad revenues in a number of ways:

• Most platform operators provide their own VSPs/FAST services to audiences (e.g., Fire TV and Amazon Prime Video; Google-Android & YouTube); they can earn subscription/advertising revenue.

• Using these positions, platform operators increasingly expect to generate revenues directly from content providers; it is common for them to request substantial shares of revenue (30 to 45% are standard terms) earned from subscriptions, transactions and ad inventory viewed on their platform(s).

• A cohort of operating systems and other providers – Google, Amazon in particular – provide IPTV platforms as part of an ecosystem of products and services; they can indirectly generate ad revenue from their IPTV platforms by using audience data to inform advertising elsewhere in their ecosystems.

In the US some TV manufacturers/platforms have embarked on a business model to make profit from the lifetime value of advertising on the device rather than the sale of the TV device itself.^{[footnote 14]} In the UK the FAST market is nascent, and as the TV replacement cycle is about seven years it would take time for the market to develop. Even then the FAST market in the UK would not likely reach the same level of revenue per device as the US, as the CPMs are lower in the UK, while FAST services may not gain as much traction as in the US due to the strength and breadth of UK content freely available in the UK.

In addition to these ad revenues, CTVs can now offer advertisers space on the overall user interface, external and separate to the video services. This does cause some confusion with advertisers as the various parts of this user experience are subject to different advertising regulations. This means what might be possible to deliver in one viewing experience may not be allowed in another.

For the reasons outlined above, the emergence of online TV platforms, video sharing platforms (VSPs) and FAST channels has been positive for platform owners; providing further opportunities to monetise the UI and gain direct access to audiences, diversify their advertising proposition(s) and – where appropriate – exploit content in different ways to extend its lifecycle.

There are also benefits for content owners and audiences; IPTV enables viewers to use VSPs and FAST services to consume a diverse range of content and to explore niche interests. Likewise, VSPs and FAST channels provide another medium for content owners and increasingly TV producers to exploit. As manufacturers/platform owners benefit from this monetisation, this can lead to more innovation and a better user experience for viewers due to continued investment in service improvements.

The total amount that companies spend on TV/CTV advertising is unlikely to increase as a result of these opportunities.

1. Smaller broadcasters, such as S4C, may not have the resources available to invest in hyper-targeting ad tech ↩

2. ISBA, Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study, 2020. ↩

3. ISBA & PwC, ISBA Programmatic supply chain transparency study II summary: Test of the Taskforce Financial Audit Toolkit, 2023. ↩

4. ISBA, Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study, 2020. ↩

5. ISBA & PwC, ISBA Programmatic supply chain transparency study II summary: Test of the Taskforce Financial Audit Toolkit, 2023. ↩

6. WARC, Signalling Success 2: More proof that the media is the message, 2024. ↩

7. In addition the Kent local TV service could increase its coverage area to the whole county—and hence increase ad revenue—which it cannot cover now due to potential spectrum interference with the continent ↩

8. Ofcom, Communications Market Report, 2024. See: ‘Commercial PSB advertising revenue’. ↩

9. Ofcom, Review of Public Service Media (2019 – 2023) – Challenges and opportunities for Public Service Media, 2024. ↩

10. The Media Leader, ‘Considerable Upside’: Amazon ad revenue tops growth among tech giants despite slowdown, November 2024. ↩

11. In general unit costs have fallen but total consumption increases have substantially increased net costs. ↩

12. Ofcom, Review of Public Service Media: “…the less time that people spend on DTT, the less cost effective per viewer it is.” ↩

13. As we note above, even though Sky and Virgin are pay-TV intermediaries themselves, because they are national, broadcast-centric platforms and have historically agreed helpful terms with UK broadcasters, they are distinct from new entrant, IP-lead platforms and services. ↩

14. We note that the profit margin on the sale of TVs has declined significantly, and so manufacturers are looking to develop recurring revenue options over the lifetime of the TV. ↩