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Hulu, YouTube And Roku Lead CTV Ad Spend For 2021

• by Wayne Friedman , November 12, 2021

Hulu, YouTube and Roku are the biggest connected TV/over-the-top platforms in terms of advertising revenue this year.

Hulu is forecast to hit $3.13 billion in 2021, with YouTube at $2.54 billion and Roku at $1.58 billion, according to eMarketer. The research company has not yet made estimates for Paramount+, Peacock and other streamers.

Overall connected TV (CTV) ad spend is projected to continue to see sharp gains -- rising 60% this year to $14.44 billion and another 32% next year to $19.1 billion.

Still, CTV ad spend will be a small piece of overall media spend -- just 4.7% of the total market. It will slowly rise to 7.6% by 2024 when it is expected to total $29.50 billion.

“CTV ad prices are also significantly higher than last year, which has driven up the overall spend,” says Peter Vahle, eMarketer senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence.

A January-to-April study from the Association of National Advertisers/Innovid, an CTV ad-tech company, says effective CPM (cost per thousand viewers) on CTV was $23. This would be competitive to broadcast, which is $36 CPM and just a bit higher than cable TV, at $19 CPM, according to eMarketer.

TV networks have been encouraging big brand marketers to shift their upfront TV advertising dollars to CTV from their linear TV budgets, suggesting a 20% to 30% move to CTV.