The Great TV Ad Swap - State of the Screens | A Column by Michael Beach

The big picture: Streaming took 48% of ad-supported TV time in 2026-Q2, up from 45% a year ago. In the same quarter, the share of all TV that carries ads fell to 72% from 74%.

Why it matters: Ad money follows ad time. Streaming is winning the ad-supported market. The ad-supported market got smaller this quarter, but I believe that is a temporary blip.

Let's break it down into 5 big questions:
1) How much TV time has ads?
2) How much of TV ad impressions come from streaming?
3) Why is streaming's share of impressions so much smaller than its share of time?
4) What needs to change for streaming to take the lead?
5) What does TV look like in 2035?

How much TV time has ads?

Total TV time (Nielsen):
1) Ad-supported - 72%
2) Ad-free - 28%

Year over year, ad-supported slipped 2%, from 74% to 72%.

Ad-supported total TV time:
1) Linear - 52% (↓ 5%)
2) Streaming - 48% (↑ 6%)

Quick math on share of TV time: 
1) 37% is ad-supported linear
2) 34% is ad-supported streaming
3) 20% is ad-free streaming
4) 8% is ad-free linear

YoY growth rate:
1) Ad-free streaming - ↑ 16%
2) Ad-supported streaming - ↑ 3%
3) Ad-free linear - ↓ 7%
4) Ad-supported linear - ↓ 8%

Counter narrative: Ad-free streaming was the fastest-growing category. It accounted for 71% of streaming's growth in Q2.

Bottom line: Streaming took nearly three points off linear this year. All of it came from cable.

How much of TV ad impressions come from streaming?

Streaming will capture 30% of TV ad impressions in 2026, up from 22% last year.

Streaming share of TV ad impressions:
1) 2025 - 22%
2) 2030 - 50%

Why it matters: Streaming has almost half the ad-supported time and less than a third of the ad impressions. That gap is the whole ballgame.

Next step: Streaming could pass linear TV for total ad-supported time as early as next year. At that point, the difference in ad impressions would come purely from streaming's lower ad load.

Flashback: Streaming's Ad Takeover Is Ahead of Schedule

Why is streaming's share of impressions so much smaller than its share of time?

Ad load. Linear TV runs about 2.5X more ads per hour.

Ad minutes per hour:
1) Linear TV - 13.2 (↑ 0.6%)
2) Streaming TV - 5.0 (↑ 33%)

Why it matters: Linear sells more ads inside less time. That is the only reason its impression lead survives.

What needs to change for streaming to take the lead?

It already is. Streaming is improving on the same factors that once protected linear, all at the same time.

Over the next five years, streaming ad impressions will grow 127%.

Growth for streaming (2025-30):
1) % of ad time - ↑ 27%
2) % of time with ads - ↑ 22%
3) % of ad-supported time - ↑ 40%
4) Ad load/hour - ↑ 56%
5) % of ad impressions - ↑ 127%

By 2035, 80% of streaming minutes will carry ads.

Change in overall ad impressions (2025-30):
1) Streaming TV - ↑ 170%
2) Linear TV - ↓ 23%
3) Convergent TV - ↑ 19%

Ad load by network (Ampere):
1) Paramount+ - 9m
2) Hulu - 8m
3) Disney+ - 8m
4) Pluto TV - 7m
5) Peacock - 5m
6) HBO Max - 4m
7) Tubi - 3m
8) Prime Video - 3m
9) Netflix - 3m

Interesting: Linear-native networks are much more aggressive with their ad loads than their streaming-native counterparts.

Surprise #1: In six months, streaming ad loads grew by ≈ 19%, a faster pace than the 25% I projected for the entire year.

Surprise #2: The companies with the highest ad load are not the companies most dependent on streaming ad revenue. Peacock earns 45% of its revenue from advertising and sits in the middle for ad load at 4.7 minutes. Paramount+ runs nearly twice the load for half the revenue share.

Flashback: O Captain, My Captain.

Flashback: Streaming’s New Scoreboard - Scale vs. Profit

What does TV look like in 2035?

Share of TV in 2035:
1) Ad-supported streaming - 55%
2) Ad-supported linear - 27%
3) Ad-free streaming - 14%
4) Ad-free linear - 4%

Why Subscribe

Because streaming captures nearly half of all ad-supported TV viewing time but less than a third of the ad impressions — and the gap between those two numbers is where the next wave of video ad spend gets built.

Every week, State of the Screens tracks the structural shift in how video advertising is bought, priced, and measured — before the networks adjust their ad loads. If you buy media, this is where the impression gap gets mapped before linear's ad load advantage completely evaporates. If you sell it, this is where you see how streaming inventory will scale 127% by 2030. If you allocate marketing capital, this is where today's ad-load disparity becomes tomorrow's dominant ad marketplace before your next upfront.

Subscribe to State of the Screens weekly here on State of Streaming and listen to Michael Beach on the podcast HERE.