Hot Takes: The State Of CTV Advertising, October 2026
We have a new TVREV Special Report coming out next week on CTV Advertising, and so for our latest Hot Take, we asked our TVREV Thought Leaders Circle Member their thoughts on some of the hottest topics in CTV in our latest Hot Takes piece.
First up is Matt McLeggon, SVP, Advanced Solutions, at our sponsor, Magnite, who spoke to why TV advertising is fundamentally different than social video.
“TV is the only medium that combines full-screen sight, sound, and motion with undivided, lean-back attention. Social media captures fragmented micro-moments, but streaming TV delivers immersive storytelling in a prestigious, brand-safe environment. Connected TV has taken that traditional emotional power and added the intelligence of digital, allowing brands to build trust and massive household reach while remaining precise, accountable, and performance-driven.”
Next up is Fariba Zamaniyan, Global SVP of Data Monetization at the reportโs other sponsor, TiVo Ads, who spoke about the need to use data to not just inform, but to project.
We have spent years using TV viewing data primarily to describe what happened โ what people watched, how many people watched it and how a campaign performed. One of the biggest untapped opportunities is using those signals to help decide what should happen next. Historically, different viewing signals have lived in different places. Set-top-box data provides a strong deterministic view of linear television viewing, while ACR adds visibility across Smart TV viewing environments. Each tells an important part of the story, but the real opportunity comes from bringing those signals together to create a more complete view of viewing behaviour. That is where we are investing at TiVo Ads. Our enhanced U.S. TV Viewership Data combines deterministic set-top-box data with ACR signals in a single, session-level feed across millions of U.S. households and devices, providing visibility across linear, AVOD…