LOS ANGELES — Sessions, ad load, and viewership. These data points have become integral to a media buyer and to CMOs looking for the biggest ROI. As such, connected TV has presented myriad opportunities for addressable advertising, and an advertising experience that marketers today are eager to tap into.
This makes a new report from Wurl a must-read for broadcast TV station ownership groups, as the funnel continues to grow for Connected TV and digital platforms while core advertising for linear television remains a key blemish for many station owners.
The biggest takeaway from Wurl is that Connected TV viewership in 2024 now matches pandemic-era highs.
Wurl writes, “The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on viewing behaviors. During the pandemic, the average daily Hours of Viewing (HOV) saw a dramatic increase, before a small decline once society started to open up again. Over the past year, daily HOV has been steadily increasing and is once again approaching the high levels seen during the pandemic’s peak, with a 5% increase from Q3 2023 and Q3 2024. The next quarter is on track to be one of the best quarters ever for Connected TV viewership.”
Meanwhile, Connected TV is getting “stickier.” Wurl says, “Over the past three years, churn rate in CTV viewership has remained relatively stable. This stability indicates that the proportion of users who leave and do not return week over week has not fluctuated dramatically. However, a gradual decline in churn rates has been observed, suggesting a slight improvement in viewer retention and platform loyalty.”
And, Wurl finds that the current quarter’s average session length up nearly 7% compared to the same quarter last year — suggesting a lasting shift in consumer behavior towards longer content consumption periods on Connected TV.
CONNECTED TO REALITY
What are viewers watching on ad-supported streaming video platforms?
Reality TV is the most common genre of content available in ad-supported Connected TV. “It had the most scenes scheduled in our dataset,” says Wurl, which took the number of scenes from each TV genre and compared them to Reality TV, which was set at the highest value of 1 on its scale.
After Reality TV, the next most common content types in ad-supported CTV are Drama, Documentary, Lifestyle, Crime, Mystery, and Comedy.
AD LOAD: A NEW BALANCE
On average, Wurl finds that an ad break in Connected TV is approximately two minutes long and typically includes four 30-second commercials. Across an entire hour, viewers are exposed to around nine minutes of advertising content on Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) channels. “This metric is crucial for understanding the balance between content and advertising and its impact on viewer experience,” Wurl says.
The chart below highlights how many minutes the average ad load per hour reached over time — with July 2023 reaching the highest average ad load, averaging 9.4 minutes of advertising per hour of viewing, 2.6% higher the previous month, the month with the second highest ad load.
Today’s ad load is down 3.4% from peak, suggesting platforms are showing fewer ads, though numbers are increasing again, Wurl concludes.
