The industry’s approach to CTV demonstrates how little we’ve learned
Opinion
CTV, when implemented well, offers premium content, engaged audiences and a chance to rebuild trust in brand-safe environments. So why is it in danger of eroding both brand impact and viewer trust?
When I first started exploring how to build more sustainable practices into the digital supply chain, I was amazed by the then-current practices, particularly programmatic, and by how much waste and opaque practices had been established and accepted as the norm.
The upside was that this meant there were many opportunities to reduce waste quickly. What was also reassuring and exciting was that the approach to a more sustainable supply chain also aligned with creating a more efficient, transparent, and quality supply chain.
And here lies the problem
What should have become fundamental to how we buy media was instead treated as an optional add-on, a values-led decision, something to be considered once the “real” decisions had already been made.
Rather than scaling, sustainability became the domain of the passionate minority. Adoption remains inconsistent, progress is painfully slow, and now the industry has already moved on, distracted by AI and the next wave of solutions without fixing the structural problems we chose to ignore.
There is rarely tension between performance and sustainable media practices. In fact, the evidence increasingly shows the opposite – it can be an enabler.
What I have realised is that the lack of adoption of sustainable media practices in digital isn’t because sustainability has fallen out of favour; it’s because the real challenge is more uncomfortable: sustainable media practices require us to confront the fundamental issues that have plagued our industry for years.
Three principles sit at the heart of a more sustainable media ecosystem: transparency, the removal of unhealthy ecosystem incentives, and the elimination of waste.
These principles aren’t linear or optional. They are deeply interconnected and relevant to the entire media plan.
Resistance to transparency is rarely based on feasibility. It is commercial. Opaqueness protects margins, and those margins are often sustained by incentives that reward volume over quality and speed over scrutiny. When you pull on the thread of sustainability, the whole operating model starts to unravel.
The rapid rise of Connected TV (CTV) is a compelling case study for this:
CTV is not online video. Treating it as such has allowed spending to outpace standards. Buying practices that would be unacceptable in other programmatic channels are routinely tolerated here. The result is an ecosystem primed for waste, fraud and poor viewer experiences.
Layer AI onto a system built on the wrong incentives, and it doesn’t fix the problem; it accelerates it.
Repeating the mistakes of early programmatic
CTV, when implemented well, offers premium content, engaged audiences and a chance to rebuild trust in brand-safe environments.
Instead, we are watching the industry repeat the mistakes of early programmatic — only this time at scale, and with significantly more money at risk. The same investment headlines act as a neon welcome sign for fraudsters.
There is little incentive for platforms to be transparent about frequency concentration, repeat exposure within the same programme, or ads served in low-attention inventory. Waste is the predictable outcome.
Streaming platforms are rewarded for filling ad slots, not for delivering effective advertising.
In many cases, ad-funded environments are designed to feel inferior, quietly nudging audiences towards ad-free subscriptions. Advertising waste isn’t an unintended consequence; it’s structurally embedded.
The erosion of brand impact and viewer trust
The industry’s reliance on inferred audience data only deepens the problem.
App-level data is frequently positioned as precision, when in reality it obscures what matters most. Channel- and programme-level data already exists and offers far stronger signals of context, mindset and suitability for audiovisual advertising.
For brands with age restrictions, programme-level transparency should be non-negotiable. Without clarity on where ads appear and why, accountability disappears.
This matters because CTV should be the channel that finally puts content and audiences first.
Instead, advertisers are consolidating ever-larger budgets into an opaque ecosystem underpinned by questionable metrics and limited scrutiny, eroding both brand impact and viewer trust.
CMOs and agencies need to be honest. Frictionless planning is not a virtue when it comes at the cost of transparency. Scale is not successful if it delivers inefficiency.
CTV is absolutely worth investing in — but only with eyes open. Progress requires friction: demanding transparency, setting guardrails around how budgets are distributed, acknowledging the real risks of fraud and refusing to pay for waste.
Sustainable media practices arent a bolt-on. It’s a stress test. And right now, too much of the CTV ecosystem is failing it.
Laura Wade is a strategic advisor for Vidium