Survey Says: Adtaxi and IAB Assess Media Viewership Shifts, Ad Spend Trends, and Sports Media Momentum

2025-04-29T08:50:48Z

Survey Says: Adtaxi and IAB Assess Media Viewership Shifts, Ad Spend Trends, and Sports Media Momentum

The last two weeks of April saw the release of two data-rich research reports from Adtaxi and IAB, which revealed some encouraging, if not especially surprising trends about the ongoing shift from linear to CTV and streaming, and also the impact of sports on recent breaks in the game. Adtaxi’s report focuses on audience migration while IAB’s naturally zeroes in on trends in ad spend.

Adtaxi’s Take: Sports and Shopping Reign Supreme

Adtaxi’s 2025 Super Bowl survey, which debuted in late January, included several striking datapoints about sports streaming, including that nearly half of all Super Bowl viewers (49%) streamed the game in 2025—either on CTV or a streaming platform—which exceeded cable and broadcast combined. The study also showed that the Super Bowl has become a multi-platform event, with 70% of viewers reporting that they engaged with the game on two or more screens.

Adtaxi’s more broadly focused 2025 Streaming Survey ledes with the news that a whopping 90% of adults call streaming their “go-to platform” for media consumption, with viewers typically tuning into five streaming services. There are still holdouts; 20.5% of viewers still watch half of their content or more on traditional linear TV, and sports fans are one of the key demographics among the traditionalists. But the linear-TV-only crowd has shrunk to an all-time low of 7.1%, down from 10% in 2024.

The report also shows more movement toward low-cost and ad-supported streaming plans.

The Adtaxi report gets sports-specific in a section on “Personalization, Shopping & Sports” that examines the state of ad personalization on digital platforms. Nearly half (48%) of viewers now say they connect with on-screen shopping experiences, shoppable ads, QR codes, and direct purchases, which bodes well for the shift to SGAI, squeeze-backs, and L-shaped ads that are increasingly claiming a portion of sports streaming screen space for advertising while leaving matches to play on.

The survey also highlights three trends on the sports side signalling the primacy of sports in the streaming world:

streaming platforms pledging ever-higher sums to secure exclusive streaming rights, such as Amazon with Thursday Night Football

Sports franchises creating their own streaming platforms

And leagues and teams partnering with media organizations to stream their games.

The new AdTaxi survey is available for download here.

IAB on Media Market Size & Growth: Follow the Money

IAB’s 2025 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report, Part One: Market Size & Growth Perceptions, produced in conjunction with Advertiser Perceptions and Guideline, debuted this week with some interesting reveals about where ad dollars were flowing in 2024, and what we can expect in 2025. It also offered clues as to the impact of premium sports streaming in particular on the migration of significant ad spend from linear TV to digital.

Overall, the study reported 16% YoY ad spend growth to $24 billion for CTV in 2024—a 78% improvement over 2023’s 9%—with 2024’s notable increase in the number of premium live sports events airing exclusively on streaming platforms cited as a major contributor to the increased ad spend. CTV continues to lag behind social (21%) and online video (17%) in YoY growth, although it closed the gap a bit.

Digital ad spend overall (encompassing CTV, social video, and online) is projected to grow 14% in 2025, which is 2–3 times faster than projected growth for other media. CTV and social were heralded as the #1 and #2 “top buys” for advertisers in 2025—with 68% of advertisers according “must buy” status to CTV and 62% to social—due in large measure to the flexibility provided by programmatic advertising and self-serve activation.

Digital continues to stretch its lead on linear TV, as the IAB report projects that CTV will command 58% of total TV/video ad spend in 2025—particularly without the boosts that linear TV got from the Olympics and U.S. presidential election in 2024.

The IAB Video Ad Spend Report Part One is available here. Look for Part Two, looking at the strategies behind the spend trends, on July 14.

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