Total TV drives 54% share of advertising profit despite increased fragmentation
An analysis of over £100m worth of UK TV investment has found that expanding the definition of TV to include SVOD, CTV and YouTube produces the same headline finding as 2024’s Profit Ability 2.
The study was conducted by marketing effectiveness firm Ebiquity in partnership with Isba, the trade body representing British advertisers. It found that “total TV”, a definition of TV that includes linear TV, broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD), subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), CTV and YouTube, drove the same 54% of profit as Thinkbox’s Profit Ability 2 study, which had defined TV more narrowly as only inclusive of linear and BVOD.
The latest study therefore concludes that TV’s profit-generating power has remained “structurally stable” even as the wider TV ecosystem has fragmented to include more players, streaming services, and the growth of video sharing services like YouTube on TV sets.
Breaking the total TV definition into its constituent parts revealed that linear TV is still “central” to TV’s profit contribution, primarily due to its continued scale. The study found that linear TV delivered 57% of TV-generated profit from 54% of total TV spend. In contrast, non-linear formats collectively accounted for the remaining 43% of TV-generated profit.
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Within that, BVOD contributed 21% of total TV profit from 15% of campaign impressions.
SVOD was found to deliver “the highest quality signal in the ecosystem”, defined as the strongest uplift per thousand impressions of any format, though the report noted its scale “remains limited” relative to linear TV, accounting for an average of 10% of campaign impressions.
Meanwhile, YouTube was found to generate a 10% profit contribution, with 67% of its impressions delivered on a TV set.
CTV recorded the lowest share of impressions across all the inventory categories, at just 2%, suggesting the channel has “yet to achieve the strategic prioritisation that would enable a robust evaluation of its commercial contribution.”
“There is a clear and consistent correlation between the share of impressions a channel delivers and its share of profit contribution,” the report reads. “This appears an obvious outcome, but as TV plans fragment across an expanding set of platforms, maintaining quality and scale across the total TV ecosystem is essential to preserving its profit-generating power.”
Ebiquity and Isba concluded the data makes a “clear case” for treating total TV as a “single integrated ecosystem” rather than a collection of channels to be managed separately. “Profit”, they argue, “follows the TV viewing experience, not the buying route.”
“This analysis should give marketers real confidence in the value of television as a profitable, effective marketing channel, but it should also change how brands think about it,” commented Ebiquity UK & Ireland managing director Michelle Morgado. “TV is no longer one format bought one way; it is an ecosystem, and it needs to be planned, bought and measured as one.”
She added: “Brands that get this right will continue to see TV deliver the kind of commercial returns few other channels can match.”
For Isba’s part, director of advertising and media relations Bobi Carley advocated for the industry to use the analysis to help move beyond asking “what is TV?”
“That’s not the question advertisers are asking,” she said. “Brands want to know how today’s ecosystem delivers business results and where they should invest for growth.”
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