By Movieguide® Staff
Connected TV now commands the attention of 243.6 million Americans — more than three-quarters of the U.S. population — yet advertisers have been slow to follow them there.
“Buyers aren’t asking for more complexity — they’re asking for the same transparency they’ve relied on for decades in linear TV,” said Ryan Moore, Chief Business Officer at Gracenote, Nielsen’s content intelligence unit.
According to eMarketer, CTV now captures 20.2% of all time Americans spend with media, yet draws just 7.7% of total ad spending — a gap that keeps widening. Viewers are there in force. Advertiser confidence is running well behind.
The core problem is data. When a brand runs an ad on linear TV, it knows what show the spot aired in, what rating that show carries and what kind of audience was watching. CTV has never reliably delivered that same show-level transparency.
Gracenote’s May 2026 report calls this the “CTV Data Gap,” and the numbers behind it are hard to argue with. A full 95% of programmatic traders say the absence of show-level signals prevents them from advocating for more CTV budget during planning.
📺 US adults are spending more time watching connected TV than linear TV, but advertiser confidence has not kept pace.
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Our new infographic breaks down the trends behind #CTV’s growth and the trust challenges still holding the channel back: https://t.co/k3sfpW8n0p#advertising pic.twitter.com/Q9DLNxwtGC
— EMARKETER (@eMarketer) June 9, 2026
Forty-seven percent of media planners cite limited show- or content-level data as their primary barrier to moving more spend into CTV, and 86% say they’d shift linear TV dollars to CTV if show-level targeting and reporting were available. The audience is already there. The infrastructure to verify it isn’t.
Ad fraud makes the case harder still. Research shows bot fraud accounts for 65% of all fraud in CTV environments — significantly higher than other digital channels. Buying inventory from a recognizable streaming platform no longer guarantees brand-safe placement, as ads can run within long-tail apps or user-generated content channels with minimal transparency or accountability.
None of that has stopped CTV’s growth — eMarketer projects ad spend on connected TV will reach $40.9 billion by 2027, up from $25.09 billion in 2023, and 89% of media planners expect to shift even more budget from linear TV to CTV over the next one to two years, according to Gracenote. The momentum is undeniable. Advertiser trust, though, remains the sticking point.
Movieguide® has watched this space develop in real time. Last year, Movieguide® reported on DirecTV’s launch of programmatic pause ads — an Emmy-winning format that earned advertiser buy-in precisely because it offered clear placement transparency and results that were easy to measure. That kind of accountability is still largely absent from the broader CTV marketplace.
For Christian families who’ve migrated to streaming — and most American households have — this industry standoff carries real consequences. The ad dollars that flow into streaming platforms directly shape what those platforms greenlight and promote, and when advertisers pull back from CTV, less investment goes toward the family-friendly, values-aligned programming audiences actually want.
The solution Gracenote is pushing — content intelligence that gives buyers a source-validated, show-level view of every ad impression — offers the industry a concrete path forward. When advertisers know exactly where their money is going, more of it follows. What’s good for accountability turns out to be good for everyone watching.
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