When you're in the measurement business, it's important to measure everything that matters — and that includes the accuracy of our annual ad business predictions
My team and I recently revisited the predictions we made way back when in December 2023, with an eye toward better understanding our industry’s constant evolution. (And don’t hesitate to ask us for time to discuss in more depth with you and your team live!)
We did pretty well on the predictions we made for this year, but we failed to predict a big one – the impact of Amazon Prime Video’s move to turn on streaming ads for all subscribers unless they opted out. Almost overnight, Prime Video Ads became one of the largest stores of streaming ad inventory. That massive new supply drove down streaming prices across the marketplace, pressuring the economics of streamers who were already grappling with right-sizing content investment. It shone a bright, unsparing light on scale, efficiency, and automation, or the painful lack thereof.
Now, on to the predictions we did make for 2024.
Prediction # 1: “TV” will be defined by its quality — not by how we watch it
VERDICT: Nailed it.
I’ll reiterate the point I made during this year’s Upfronts; We no longer live in a world of networks and streamers. Instead, we have convergent TV media companies.
There may be no better evidence of this than a glance at the Upfronts themselves. Rather than sticking to the digital-focused Newfronts, Amazon showed up in NYC, soliciting advertisers alongside “streamers” like Netflix and traditional “networks” like NBCUniversal and FOX. The Upfronts were healthy again this year because advertisers love the premium quality of programming, the engaging power of sight-sound-and-motion ads, and the targetability and measurability of streaming.
One key outcome of this shift is that media companies will need to be technically agile and hyper-efficient moving forward, since the fragmentation we’re seeing drives up complexity and costs.
For example, ad agencies and media buyers often request brand lift surveys from networks to prove performance in exchange for an upfront commitment. That kind of information is expensive — costing $25,000 and up — and it often requires a great deal of manual human effort. To top it all off, these surveys can take six to eight weeks to complete.
Instead, media companies will need to embrace new methods of trafficking and measuring campaigns that take advantage of modern technology’s economies of scale and lower costs.
Prediction #2: A more complex, competitive, and costly TV landscape will make media agencies more important than ever
VERDICT: Correct…probably, maybe.
I’d say our team feels vindicated on this point — with an asterisk. As into measurement as we are, it’s pretty tough to quantify something like the relative importance of media agencies. What we can say is that if media agencies were seriously threatened, you’d expect a major migration to in-house operations, with automated campaigns running on Apple, Meta, and Google’s platforms.
While we don’t see much evidence of that migration, we do see evidence that advertisers are placing greater demands on their agencies, making these agencies that much more important as partners. As a result of these growing expectations some on the brand side (including Amazon and L'Oréal) chose to reexamine their relationships with their agencies this past year.
Switching agencies can be a risky move — it’s a major disruption where you can lose significant institutional knowledge. That major brands are willing to make these changes speaks to the importance of having the right agency in our current landscape.
Prediction #3: Programmatic TV advertising will take a leap forward – and we’ll finally start asking hard questions about the data
VERDICT: Nailed the first part, the second is a bit trickier
Programmatic TV ads have become a major force. Again, there’s no better evidence of this than this year’s Upfronts, where programmatic tools were a massive part of the conversation at an event historically focused on direct deals. Today, every big media player from Disney to Netflix is leaning heavily on its ability to execute automated ad selling and buying.
But when it comes to asking hard questions about the nature and accuracy of programmatic TV ad data, things are a little murkier. The big question we should be asking is this: Why are we focused on empowering buyers to purchase the biggest target audience at the lowest price, rather than helping them achieve optimal outcomes within their budgets? In search and social, automated optimization in line with target outcomes has been the norm for years — just think of the success Google and Meta have had over the years selling cost-per-outcome advertising. So why is programmatic TV stuck in 2015?
Prediction #4: Major league sports will fully embrace streaming, not just on Thursday nights
VERDICT: Nailed it.
I’d humbly say this one is a bullseye. The NBA is now on Netflix (sort of), and Amazon Prime continued to expand its sports content. 2024 was also the year of Venu — ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s joint venture, even if it’s currently paused on an antitrust injunction.
In addition to these moves, many regional sports networks, or RSNs, have fallen apart – and are being replaced by direct-to-consumer streaming. Following the bankruptcy of Bally Sports owner Diamond Sports Group, a pair of Dallas sports teams banded together to form Victory+, an ad-supported-only app with regional broadcasts and on-demand content.
The TV ad business is changing fast — and we’re keeping track of all the major developments
All in all, 2024 was a year where our industry continued to move toward a truly convergent TV ecosystem, one where the lines between “digital” and “linear” TV became so blurry that you almost can’t see them anymore.
As our rapidly changing industry continues to develop, we’ll be watching closely and sharing what we’ve learned along the way.
Check back soon for our 2025 predictions — if we’re as accurate as we were in 2024, you won’t want to miss them.