All About Linear TV: The Backbone of Effective Campaigns
The investment in TV campaigns for the first six months of 2024 reached $380 million (data from thevab report). 67% of small and medium-sized businesses spent under $500K during this period. TV is a reliable growth engine, and businesses of all sizes need it. And linear is still a must-have for success.
Nielsen data shows that more than 70% of households in the USA still subscribe to traditional cable or satellite TV.
Nearly half of all TV viewing time is still on linear TV, especially among audiences who might be unengaged or unavailable on Connected TV (CTV) and streaming services. For these groups, linearity is not only relevant but essential.
In our recent 2024 Holiday Season Forecast, we noted that a strategic, cross-channel approach—combining linear and CTV—yields the best results in reaching audiences efficiently. This brandformance TV approach optimizes brand reach and performance by allowing advertisers to integrate the vast reach of linear with the precision of CTV. Linear TV supports broad awareness and credibility, while CTV provides advanced targeting and flexibility. Together, they form a powerful toolkit for advertisers looking to maximize impact across diverse consumer segments.
What is linear TV, and how does linear TV advertising work?
Linear TV is traditional, scheduled television, where programming is broadcast on a set schedule across networks. Unlike on-demand content, linear TV programs are viewed as they air, with audiences following each network's fixed timetable.
Linear TV advertising entails purchasing airtime on these traditional broadcast channels to display ads during breaks in programming. Linear TV's ecosystem is built around cable and satellite networks and broadcast channels, each offering advertisers a platform to reach audiences at scale. Ad spots can be bought across major networks, local affiliates, or channels catering to niche interests. Unlike digital ads, which are individually targeted, linear ads are broadcast to all viewers in the region or demographic that the network reaches.
What is the linear TV ecosystem?
Networks and channels
These include national broadcast networks, cable channels, and local affiliates that broadcast the scheduled content and are central to the distribution of ads. According to USTVDB data from November 2024, the leading networks in the USA are NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC, and CBS.
Advertising markets:
- Upfront market: This market enables advertisers to secure premium slots and lower pricing ahead of time by locking in an upfront commitment to the entire upcoming broadcast season
- Scatter market: This market offers more flexibility, allowing advertisers to buy ad spots closer to the airing date. It is less predictable than upfront but allows for agile, timely campaigns.
Both upfront and scatter play vital roles in a well-rounded strategy, each serving distinct purposes. The upfront is ideal for brands seeking mass reach and predictability but offers limited flexibility, making adjustments to campaigns challenging once commitments are made. Conversely, the scatter market is great for filling gaps and targeting specific audiences but may have higher CPMs.
Data providers and measurement tools
Data providers for linear TV are organizations that collect, analyze, and supply audience metrics to help advertisers and networks understand viewership patterns and campaign performance. These providers enable targeted advertising, measure campaign outcomes, and optimize media planning.
Nielsen dominated TV measurement provider markets for decades, but the landscape is evolving. Today, advanced data providers like Comscore and iSpot.tv are reshaping how advertisers track and optimize campaigns. These tools go beyond traditional ratings, offering granular insights into audience behaviors and cross-platform performance, similar to Simulmedia.
As for measurement tools, advanced technologies, such as Automated Content Recognition (ACR), enhance precision by capturing viewing data from smart TVs, enabling advertisers to connect TV exposure to measurable business outcomes.
Emerging Trends in multi-channel TV Advertising
The TV advertising industry is embracing innovative approaches that blend the strengths of traditional and digital channels. Addressable TV advertising now enables brands to deliver highly targeted messages to specific households, leveraging data to combine linear TV's vast reach with digital precision. At the same time, programmatic buying revolutionizes how linear TV ads are purchased, introducing efficiency and real-time optimization to enhance campaign performance. Furthermore, cross-platform strategies seamlessly integrating linear TV with digital platforms are becoming essential, allowing advertisers to maximize reach, engage diverse audiences, and ensure cohesive messaging across channels.
Why advertise on Linear? The advantages and benefits of linear
Non-skippable ads and audience engagement
Linear TV ads are inherently non-skippable, allowing brands to capture viewer attention without the risk of "scrolling past." This format encourages higher engagement rates as viewers tune in for premium content, such as sports, live events, and high-profile broadcasts. Linear ads also benefit from familiarity and credibility, often tied to the established nature of traditional networks.
Credibility and trustworthiness
TV is often associated with premium content on reputable channels, making it an ideal medium for brand-building campaigns. With linear TV, advertisers can place their message alongside trusted shows, reinforcing the perception of quality and credibility.
Broad reach and audience diversity
Linear TV continues to reach a large, diverse audience that spans age groups, locations, and interests. Certain demographics—such as older viewers and specific regional audiences—are more reachable through linear TV than streaming alone. For brands seeking national exposure, linear offers unparalleled reach, delivering a high volume of impressions across a mass audience.
Emotional impact and brand storytelling
Linear TV provides more time for brand storytelling. With 30- and 60-second spots, brands can craft narratives that connect emotionally with viewers. These ads often feature high production value, engaging visuals, and memorable jingles that resonate and foster brand affinity.
Advantages of big screens
Big screens, like traditional TVs, offer unmatched advantages for advertising by providing a sit-down environment where viewers are more engaged and purposeful in their content consumption. Big screens create an immersive experience, driving higher engagement and better ad response rates. This impact stems from viewers' focused attention on the content they intentionally seek out, making it a premium setting for delivering targeted and effective campaigns.
Cross-channel synergy: The brandformance TV approach
Through the brandformance TV approach, brands can integrate linear TV with digital channels like CTV to create a cohesive and effective advertising strategy. This approach balances brand-building and performance, leveraging linear's wide reach to support awareness while CTV targets niche audiences. By combining both formats, advertisers can engage audiences at multiple touchpoints, from broad awareness on TV to precise targeting on digital platforms.
Data-Driven Targeting: Optimizing Linear Campaigns
One of linear TV's emerging advantages is its growing capability for data-driven targeting. Innovations in planning, executing, and measuring campaigns allow brands to leverage data to optimize their linear TV strategy precisely. By using advanced tools and methodologies, advertisers can identify specific audience segments and strategically place their spots to ensure maximum impact.
Data-driven targeting enables linear TV to go beyond its traditional mass-reach approach, allowing brands to deliver more refined and efficient ads. This evolution aligns with the growing demand for measurable outcomes, making linear TV campaigns more competitive and complementary to data-centric digital channels like CTV.
Challenges of linear TV advertising
While linear TV offers distinct advantages, it also faces several challenges that advertisers must navigate effectively. Here are some of the key hurdles and strategies to overcome them.
Fragmentation of the TV landscape
The proliferation of channels, networks, and platforms has fragmented the TV audience. Today’s viewers are dispersed across traditional linear TV, streaming services, and digital platforms, making achieving broad reach through a single medium harder.
To address the fragmentation of the TV landscape, advertisers can adopt a cross-channel strategy that integrates linear TV, streaming platforms, and digital media to maximize reach and engage audiences across multiple touchpoints.
Measurement limitations
Linear TV lacks the granular analytics available in digital advertising, making it difficult to attribute ad performance to business outcomes directly. Traditional methods focus on broad demographic metrics, often failing to provide actionable campaign optimization insights. This lack of precision creates challenges in evaluating ROI.
Automated Content Recognition (ACR) enhances the agility of linear TV advertising by delivering early insights into ad viewership, allowing advertisers to gauge campaign performance faster than traditional methods. While final results depend on post-log processing, advanced tools can process these logs more efficiently than other providers, ensuring advertisers receive actionable data sooner. This agility enables timely adjustments and strategic decision-making, making linear TV campaigns more dynamic and responsive to evolving business needs.
Declining viewership
Linear TV has faced a significant decline in viewership, particularly among younger audiences gravitating toward on-demand, ad-free streaming services. This migration challenges advertisers to maintain reach and engagement as traditional methods lose effectiveness. To overcome this, brands can adopt a cross-channel brandformance TV approach, seamlessly integrating linear TV with Connected TV (CTV) and digital platforms. By combining linear's broad reach and credibility with CTV’s precision targeting, advertisers can recapture fragmented audiences and ensure consistent messaging across all touchpoints.
Balance mass reach with the demands of modern data-driven marketing - this is the main challenge for brands that want to advertise on linear TV. To achieve success, advertisers must combine an understanding of traditional TV’s strengths with the flexibility of today’s tools and technologies, like data-driven targeting.
The process starts with defining clear objectives. Advertisers must align their strategy with specific KPIs to ensure measurable results, whether the goal is to build brand awareness, drive action, or introduce a new product. From there, audience insights play a critical role. By leveraging advanced tools like Nielsen data and automated content recognition (ACR) technology, advertisers can efficiently identify the right programs, networks, and time slots to reach their target demographic.
A key decision point is selecting the right ad-buying market. The upfront market offers predictability and access to premium inventory but requires early commitments, while the scatter market provides flexibility and opportunities to target audiences closer to air dates. Combining both ensures that most brands can secure prime placements while maintaining the agility to adjust based on shifting trends and audience behavior.
Throughout the campaign, advertisers must rely on a data-driven, omnichannel approach. By integrating linear TV with digital and Connected TV (CTV) strategies, they can maximize scale and ensure their message reaches audiences across platforms. Regular analysis of ACR data and streamlined post-log processing allows for quick campaign adjustments to optimize placements, manage frequency, and achieve measurable outcomes.
Ultimately, successful linear TV campaigns blend the proven scale of traditional TV with the precision of modern analytics, ensuring advertisers not only hit their KPIs but also maximize ROI in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.