At a special event from New Digital Age in partnership with Rakuten TV Enterprise in London’s Soho, a panel moderated by NDA’s Editor-in-Chief, Justin Pearse, dug into the realities behind the hype for connected TV. The conversation followed headline findings from a new report into CTV advertising presented by Chris Edwards, Senior Director, Media, Rakuten TV Enterprise. On the panel were Sam Wilson, VP, CTV, EMEA, Magnite; Brecht Debels, Programmatic AV Director, OMD; Marcos Milanez, Chief Content Officer, Rakuten TV; and Emma Glenn, Head of Programmatic UK, Spark Foundry.
Edwards set the tone with optimism tempered by clear challenges. “A massive 74%” of the 100 UK senior marketers we surveyed plan to increase CTV investment, he said, with 63% likely to spend more and a further 11% planning to significantly increase budgets.
Yet transparency is the single biggest blocker, cited by 42% of respondents, with supply chain complexity close behind at 39%. Viewability topped specific transparency concerns at 30%, alongside fraud, limited audience insight and a general lack of clarity. The thrust of the research, however, was that most of these issues are solvable with sensible choices and industry collaboration.
Why CTV growth is accelerating
The first question was simple, why is spend rising and what could derail it? Wilson pointed to consumer behaviour and hardware cycles.
“Consumers are on these services, so advertisers need to be there to talk to their audience” he said, noting device makers’ growing role in distribution. As households upgrade TVs and skip set-top boxes, UK viewing is catching up with the US, though “we’re a couple of years behind.” He saw no material brakes on growth, “apart from some macroeconomic trends,” and characterised today’s sticking points as tweaks rather than roadblocks.
Milanez described how Rakuten TV’s strategic pivot mirrors this audience shift. Back in 2019, Rakuten moved beyond its transactional store into FAST and AVOD. “That paid off. Today it’s the biggest share of our business,” he said, citing growth in both content and viewership.
For agencies, Glenn sees the same momentum across plans. “We need to go where the audience is,” she said, while stressing the industry’s responsibility to make CTV simpler and more transparent so buyers can invest with confidence.
CTV’s appeal, the panel agreed, is the blend of TV’s storytelling canvas with digital’s data and control. “It brings TV and digital together,” Glenn said. “You have the broad reach of TV, but then you have the data-driven insights that you can get from digital. It becomes part of the omnichannel ecosystem.”
Wilson highlighted that it is more than a TV extension. CTV opens the big screen to net new advertisers who would never have bought linear.
“You’ve now got the opportunity as a small or medium sized brand to advertise on the big screen to exactly your target audience, with zero wastage and very limited amounts of spend,” he said. He also called out format innovation around the core spot, from tile ads in app environments to pause ads that meet audiences when attention peaks.
Edwards sees custom formats and sponsorship evolving to match new viewer journeys.
“We’re seeing great interest because they extend storytelling beyond the 30-second ad,” he said, from curated movie channels to sponsorships that follow passion points rather than a one size fits all plan.
Milanez added that CTV lowers barriers for content owners too, with Rakuten’s B2B enterprise tools helping partners, and even brands, build FAST channels and branded content experiences.
FAST versus AVOD, two distinct viewing mindsets
Consumer behaviour is not uniform across CTV. Milanez drew a clean line between FAST and AVOD on Rakuten’s platform. FAST is lean-back and passive, “like in the good old days, sit down, relax, scroll for a channel and let it play.” Single IP channels thrive because they are easy to drop into at any point. AVOD is the opposite, an active, search-driven session dominated by films, where users arrive with intent.
Debels noted the creative and planning implications of those contexts, especially as ad loads and break construction evolve. Done well, AVOD can deliver “really good ads in relevant context,” he said, pointing to the potential for smarter contextual matching, while recognising that poor ad break design can jar in on-demand environments.
Glenn’s experience is that clients understand these nuances and are leaning in, especially when break positions are predictable and can be used to time creative impact.
Transparency, pick the right partners and cut the chain
Debating whether transparency is a persistent, structural problem in CTV, Wilson’s answer was pragmatic, and it ran through the whole discussion – it depends who you work with.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a huge issue,” he said. “It’s down to choosing the right partners, making sure the right signals are being passed, and working with owned and operated organisations like Rakuten TV, or third parties they have vetted.”
The period when CTV was bought like display, via long and confusing chains with multiple SSPs and DSPs, made things worse. The cure is to “strip this right back” and focus on a tight set of tech partners and a finite set of premium content owners in each market.
Debels, from the buy-side, agreed that fragmentation still causes friction. Different sellers and platforms expose different levels of detail, “some will show genres, some won’t, some will show show-level data, some won’t.”
His call was for uniform transparency signals so optimisation is based on comparable data, not guesswork.
Glenn’s checklist echoed that theme. Be closer to supply, understand fees, prioritise premium inventory and build curated CTV marketplaces that reflect brand KPIs.
“We can’t dismiss the challenges,” she said, but the way through is smart partner selection, clear KPIs and buying behaviours, not chasing every exchange path available.
Edwards distilled the publisher’s perspective to three non-negotiables, “a clear path in the bidstream,” third-party verified supply, and “premium-quality content that a brand would expect to be aligned against.”
He also stressed being visible and responsive, “if there’s a flaw, tell us and we’ll find out why,” and tailoring inventory to brand needs, even down to excluding categories like news when advertisers prefer not to appear there.
Measurement reality: stop waiting for a perfect standard
If transparency is a solvable plumbing issue, measurement is the enduring debate. Wilson was blunt about the dream of a single global standard, “I don’t know whether we’ll ever get to that.”
Walled gardens, proprietary device data and competitive dynamics make broad consensus unlikely. “We waste a lot of cycles trying to achieve that,” he said. The practical path is to agree clear KPIs with clients, layer digital signals from the bidstream, and use credible local market systems, from BARB in the UK to equivalents across Europe.
Glenn hears the same from clients, measure impact, prove incrementality and ROI. Her approach is to set expectations up front, “have really honest conversations about KPIs and what we can deliver in this fast, rapidly growing space,” recognising that standards will evolve and differ by region. Trusted partners and premium supply remain the hedge against risk while the yardsticks mature.
Edwards pointed to tools that already work, from brand lift studies to incremental reach analyses with third-party data. The point is not to wait for perfection, but to “deliver to the outcomes of a brand,” and fold appropriate measurement into the brief from the start.
Debels widened the lens, arguing that CTV should sit within a unified video strategy across social, YouTube, online video and TV, using “the best tools for each format” rather than forcing a single scale to fit all.
Skills and simplification, closing the gap by design
The research found most respondents believing their teams were genuinely up to speed with CTV tech knowledge. The survey suggested three quarters believe they are, and the panel largely agreed.
Edwards has seen a steep curve since 2019, but continuous education remains essential as advanced audience tools evolve. Glenn described a learning culture in agencies, with silos between AV and digital breaking down and client pods working more closely across channels. “We have to be agile, learn fast and smart,” she said, because clients expect consultative advice across a growing programmatic footprint.
Wilson cautioned that vendors sometimes make things harder than they need to be.
“Tech companies have always overcomplicated stuff,” he said. The job of platforms is to make it easy to access great content at scale, which is why Magnite has invested in tools to simplify creative production and activation for new-to-TV advertisers. The destination the whole panel wants is the same, fewer steps, clearer signals, easier buying.
Three years out, the panel’s forecast
Asked what will matter most by 2028, Debels said he will be watching streaming platforms that invest not only in content but in UI and ad experience, “that’s where users will likely flock to.” Glenn expects more crossover between linear and CTV under a total TV mindset, with progress on simplification, even if fragmentation does not disappear. “I want less fragmentation and I want it to be more simple and brand safe and transparent,” she said.
Milanez predicted continued migration of broadcasters and telcos into CTV, from Freeview-style aggregators to operator apps replacing set-top boxes, and a user journey so seamless that most people will not distinguish FAST from TV at all, “for them, it’s just free TV channels.” Wilson closed with two words, “simplicity and collaboration,” more content sharing and an easier world to buy in.
Practical advice for cautious advertisers
From the audience came a question many teams recognise, how do you persuade advertisers who have been burned by fraud or supply mismanagement?
Edwards’ answer was to hold their hand with evidence, “show the transparency in our supply, the verification tools,” and, where appropriate, let them dip a toe via selected partners while making the case for more direct routes to maximise transparency and priority.
Wilson recommended choosing established partners who are close to the source of inventory and can prove it.
“You should be able to have a conversation with both the tech partner and the publisher that owns that inventory.”
Glenn added the human layer, empathy, education and reassurance. Work through the supply path, KPIs and brand safety tools, then be accountable to business outcomes. “Hey, I’ve got your back, I’ve got your money, and we’re going to make sure this delivers what you need.”
In conclusion: progress over perfection
CTV in the UK has momentum, and the reasons are logical, audiences are there, formats are evolving, and both buyers and sellers can now combine the best of TV and digital.
The transparency headlines are real, but the fixes are increasingly well understood, pick premium partners, shorten and verify paths, and insist on clear signals. Measurement remains the thorniest topic, yet the practical way forward is to stop waiting for a universal yardstick and align on achievable KPIs, credible local systems and a unified video view of effectiveness.
If the discussion proved anything, it is that simplicity is not a buzzword but a strategy. Make buying easier, make reporting clearer, make content discovery more native, and the rest follows. Or as Wilson put it, the job now is “to make it as easy as possible.”
Rakuten TV Enterprise is a client of Bluestripe Group, publisher of New Digital Age.
