Microsoft is testing ads in cloud gaming. Spotify’s letting users steer the algorithm. Netflix is redesigning its app for frequent opens. Across media, monetization and discovery are shifting upstream, toward systems that manage access, not just content.
IAB 2026 Outlook Study Forecasts 9.5% Growth in U.S. Ad Spend, Fueled by Digital Growth
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Hub: Short-Form Video Impacting Consumer Time Spent on TV, Movies
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Prime Video Returns to Weekly Nationwide Television Prominence Live-Streaming NBA Games
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Call for Thought Leadership Programming: OTT.X Breakfast @ NAB 2026
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Substack Is Launching a TV App
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The Reordering of Streaming Economics
Microsoft is testing ads in cloud gaming. Spotify’s letting users steer the algorithm. Netflix is redesigning its app for frequent opens. Across media, monetization and discovery are shifting upstream, toward systems that manage access, not just content.
The Take
Streaming economics are being reordered. Content still matters, but control over discovery, access, and monetization is where leverage is consolidating. Those building upstream systems are defining value. The rest are footing the bill.
Read the Full Analysis: The Streaming Wars
IAB 2026 Outlook Study Forecasts 9.5% Growth in U.S. Ad Spend, Fueled by Digital Growth
IAB has released its annual 2026 Outlook Study, “A Snapshot into U.S. Ad Spend, Opportunities, and Strategies for Growth.” Based on insights from more than 200 brands and agency buyers, IAB’s study forecasts 9.5% year-over-year growth in U.S. ad spend, accelerated by major cyclical events and a clear shift toward performance-led strategies and the increasing use of agentic AI in shaping how marketing decisions are planned, activated, and optimized.
“Our report shows that in this growth cycle, innovation and experimentation are firmly taking priority as the market is being structurally reimagined”, said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “The encouraging news is that buyers are still looking at 2026 as a year of growth despite a lot of potentially destabilizing forces. The industry is working with AI-powered tools that are constantly improving and are delivering both efficiency and effectiveness to marketers. We remain encouraged and optimistic about the opportunities in the year ahead.”
The Next Phase of AI: From Experimentation to Agentic Execution
AI has become the defining force shaping marketing priorities in 2026, with advertisers rapidly embedding the technology across planning, activation, and measurement. The report finds that five of the six top areas of increased focus for advertisers are now directly tied to AI including the proliferation of autonomous and agentic solutions, underscoring how quickly these capabilities have moved from emerging tools to core industry infrastructure.
Digital Channels Lead Growth as Cyclical Events Cushion Linear TV Decline
With total U.S. ad spend projected to grow 9.5% in 2026, digital continues to outpace the broader market, with double-digit gains expected across social media (+14.6%), connected TV (+13.8%), and commerce media (+12.1%). These channels are increasingly central to marketers’ performance strategies, powered by AI-driven targeting and measurement innovations.
Read the Story: IAB
Hub: Short-Form Video Impacting Consumer Time Spent on TV, Movies
YouTube has topped Nielsen’s TV viewing charts since 2024, as creators secure high-profile studio deals that rival—and often surpass—those of traditional producers. Streamers are inking major video podcast deals, and the buzz on 3-minute microdramas may finally deliver where Quibi fell short. Hub Entertainment Research's latest "Video Redefined" study confirms that, beyond traditional TV and movies, the definition of what comprises "watching TV" is broader than ever.
Since 2022, weekly TV and movie viewing is down by two hours, while social/creator viewing has held steady.
·Weekly TV & movie viewing has declined from 21 to 19 hours per week, while viewing of social/creator video viewing has remained steady at about 11 hours per week.
Viewing of social/creator video is growing stronger among older viewers over 35.
Older viewers 35+ are continuing to increase how much they watch social/creator videos, an opportunity to deliver even more to satisfy that growing audience.
Microdramas may have broken the curse of Quibi.
More than one in five (22%) viewers say they have watched these mini (1-3 minute) dramatic stories that play out over multiple episodes.
They love how easy they are to watch and the dramatic and suspenseful stories they deliver.
Still, social platforms remain central to how viewers discover longer-form TV and movies, especially for younger viewers.
Well over half of viewers age 13-34 say they discover new TV shows and movies from clips they see on places like TikTok and Instagram.
Read the Full Report: Hub Research
Prime Video Returns to Weekly Nationwide Television Prominence Live-Streaming NBA Games
The NFL “Thursday Night Football” and postseason might be over for Prime Video, but the basketball season is filling the massive football void.
Amazon’s inaugural partnership live-streaming select NBA games as part of the league’s 11-year agreement worth $77 billion with ESPN (ESPN Unlimited) and NBCUniversal (Peacock) saw the streamer’s Jan. 25 live-stream between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers generate 1.15 million viewers across 862,000 households, according to new data from Nielsen.
The tally was good enough to rank as the 16th most-viewed sports event on television for the week ended Jan. 25.
Prime Video’s exclusive live-stream on Jan. 15 between the New York Knicks and the Golden State Warriors generated 1.9 million viewers across 922,000 households to rank as the 12th most-viewed televised sports event through Jan. 18.
By comparison, “Thursday Night Football” averaged 15.33 million viewers per game during the 2025 regular season.
This marked the highest average in the 20-year history of the NFL’s Thursday night package, surpassing prior highs, including 13.65 million in 2019 (across Fox, NFL Network, and Prime Video). It represented a 16% increase from the 2024 season’s average of 13.2 million, continuing a trend of double-digit year-over-year growth.
Peacock and the new ESPN Unlimited streaming platforms concurrently live-stream NBA and select college basketball games with their sister networks NBC Sports and ESPN, respectively.
Read the Full Story: Media Play News
Call for Thought Leadership Programming: OTT.X Breakfast @ NAB 2026
The annual OTT.X Breakfast at NAB returns to Las Vegas on April 19th 2026, bringing together the most influential voices shaping the future of broadcasting, streaming, CTV, and the broader media & entertainment ecosystem. Start your NAB week with an exclusive, executive-level gathering designed to spark new ideas, strengthen partnerships, and examine how broadcast’s legacy is evolving alongside next-generation platforms, technologies, and workflows.
Featuring forward-looking programming, candid conversations, and a full, hearty breakfast, this event convenes executives, technologists, creators, and dealmakers focused on what’s next across content creation, live production, distribution, monetization, and measurement. Each year, the OTT.X Breakfast helps frame the conversations that matter most—making it a must-attend moment during NAB.
OTT.X is now accepting proposals for sponsor-supported thought leadership sessions at the 2026 OTT.X Breakfast @ NAB. Lead the conversation through curated programming segments that inform, inspire, and address the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing broadcasters, streamers, and media organizations navigating broadcast’s next evolution.
Substack Is Launching a TV App
You’ve probably noticed that Substack — which started as a platform for sending email newsletters — has gone all-in on video. It launched live video in January last year and has been wooing more video-first talent like Jim Acosta, Katie Couric and Aaron Parnas. With Substack TV, which has been in the works for some time, Substack is further cementing itself as a video platform.
Available on Apple TV and Google TV platforms, the Substack TV app will give viewers access to any live and on-demand video content that they can already access via their Substack subscriptions. Free and paid subscribers can sign into the app, which will showcase content they already pay for, as well as a For You section of curated recommended videos. Users won’t be able to preview content they don’t pay for at launch, but Substack says that’s a feature it will add in the future. The company says it’s also planning to add search capabilities, audio-only content and in-app upgrades to paid subscriptions.
Chris Cillizza, the former CNN political reporter who now authors the Substack newsletter So What, said in a Substack blog post announcing the new app, “Video doesn’t have to live in any one place. It needs to be wherever someone chooses to consume it. The Substack TV app does just that for me and my work.”
Though Substack does not currently operate an advertising business, the company — which raised $100 million in funding last year at a $1.1 billion valuation from investors including The Chernin Group, BOND, sports agent Rich Paul and Andreessen Horowitz — has become more open to advertising. Last year, it began piloting a program for native advertising that co-founder Hamish McKenzie told Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg would roll out more widely later this year. Though Substack is currently focusing on written content for its advertising moves, it could eventually look to introduce video advertising — and when it does it would be a head start if it already has a loyal audience on television sets.
Read the Full Story: Like & Subscribe
Global Streaming Revenue Earned for Netflix by "Stranger Things"
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While we don’t yet have numbers on the performance of the final season of Stranger Things, we calculate that the show’s impressive haul to date already puts it in a class of its own.
Key Findings
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- Ahead of its series finale, Stranger Things generated over $1B in global streaming revenue for Netflix since 2020, driving both acquisition and retention, with 2+ million estimated new subscriber signups according to Parrot Analytics Streaming Economics.
- The chart highlights how new releases unlock step-change value. In Q2–Q3 2022 Season 4 delivered $120M+ in revenue per quarter, underscoring how few titles can convert global attention into sustained financial impact at this scale.
- Netflix’s strategy of splitting the final season into batches and adding a limited theatrical release for the finale should extend engagement and monetize franchise-level hype beyond streaming.
In Case You Missed It
- Paramount+ Plans a Major Short-Form Video Push, Leaked Internal Docs Show. The Streaming Wars
- Netflix’s Brazil Play: From Local Rights to Strategic Foothold in Latin America. The Streaming Wars
- Netflix’s Live Bet Is Starting to Look Like Infrastructure. The Streaming Wars
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- UFC 324 Delivers Paramount+ Its Biggest Exclusive Live Event Ever. The Streaming Wars
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- Dhar Mann’s Microdrama Deal With Fox Is What Industrialized Creator TV Actually Looks Like. The Streaming Wars
- Myths in Streaming: What Are Middle Managers Even For?. The Streaming Wars
- Ask Skip: If Flattening Makes Us Faster, Why Does Everything Feel Slower?. The Streaming Wars
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