Viewer behavior has already moved decisively toward streaming. The next question is whether budgets have followed. Between 2024 and 2025, AdClarity data shows that CTV ad spend in the United States rose from about 46.9 billion dollars to roughly 51.3 billion dollars, an increase of just over 9 percent in a single year. That tells us advertisers are not just experimenting with CTV. They are building it into core media plans.
At the same time, CTV still appears underrepresented relative to the share of viewing time it commands. Americans are expected to spend around 20 percent of their daily media time with CTV, while streaming will represent only about 8 percent of total ad spend. Linear TV, by contrast, is projected to capture roughly 21 percent of time and 11 percent of spend. That imbalance is an opportunity for brands that are willing to rebalance budgets faster than the market average.
CTV Spend Is Growing While Other Lines Shrink
CTV budgets continue to rise as advertisers shift money out of standard display and some forms of online video that deliver weaker attention or less premium context. Across many European markets, digital video including CTV already accounts for roughly two thirds of video ad spend.
The relative roles of channels are changing. CTV is taking on more of the job that linear TV once did, while other digital formats handle more of the lower funnel and frequency-heavy tasks.
The Attention and Investment Gap
Even with these gains, CTV still receives a smaller share of total ad spend than its share of viewing time suggests it should. That gap between where people spend their time and where money is still allocated is one of the clearest indicators of opportunity. When attention and investment diverge, brands that adjust early often enjoy better pricing and can secure inventory in high value environments before prices fully reflect demand.
In the case of CTV, that means reaching households on the main screen with strong creative while competitors are still debating when to commit.
Planning CTV Inside a Single Video Budget
For 2026, it is increasingly useful to think of CTV as part of one integrated video budget rather than a separate experiment. Linear TV, CTV, online video, and social video should be planned together against a shared objective and a shared view of reach and frequency.
A practical approach starts by benchmarking current CTV investment against target audience viewing habits. From there, planners can model incremental reach when CTV is layered on top of existing linear and digital activity and compare that incremental reach cost with other options. The goal is not to chase CTV for its own sake, but to give it a precise role in delivering outcomes at an efficient cost.
This article concentrates on the budget and planning implications of CTV growth. The first article in the series explained how streaming has transformed viewing in the living room and why CTV now sits at the center of that change. The third and last article will examine how leading verticals translate these trends into concrete channel mixes, so you can see how strategy, spend, and category reality come together.
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