By Shez Iqbal
December is a natural moment to pause and reflect. For me, it marks my first full year working inside the Connected TV (CTV) ecosystem a pocket of the industry I had spent years observing from the outside.
And if I’m honest, my preconceptions weren’t flattering, formed while I was exploring CTV from the outside for a retail media and performance-focused advertising platform.
At the time, CTV often felt pretentious. Heavy on jargon, dense with acronyms, and surrounded by what appeared to be a familiar inner circle receiving red-carpet treatment at industry events. Conversations felt over-engineered and difficult to penetrate unless you already spoke the language.
I was wrong. Sort of.
Complexity isn’t performative, it’s structural
CTV sits within one of the most fragmented ecosystems in media. Device manufacturers, operating systems, broadcasters, publishers, ad servers, supply-side and demand-side platforms, and measurement providers all sit between an advertiser and a viewer.
That fragmentation isn’t unique to CTV, but it feels more acute because some parts of the ecosystem operate translucently. More of the supply chain is visible, more decisions can be scrutinised, and there is far less room to smooth over inconsistency than there ever was in linear television.
Over the past year, it has become clear that CTV has moved beyond novelty. Growth alone is no longer enough. The industry is being pushed by advertisers, economics and scrutiny towards accountability and transparency. And transparency, by its nature, brings complexity with it.
Nobody really cares about the “C” until it matters
For all the internal debate, advertisers ultimately want assurance when they ask:
“Where is my ad actually going to appear?”
For viewers at home, it’s even simpler. They don’t care about acronyms, formats or delivery paths. All they see is the biggest screen in the room with an ad playing. To them, it’s just television.
That simplicity is something the industry needs to remember more often.
True CTV is advertising delivered to the television screen. That includes:
- SVOD platforms that carry advertising
- BVOD, where broadcaster on-demand services insert ads
- AVOD and FAST, including ad-supported streaming services and linear-style free channels
These environments share a defining characteristic: ads appear on the primary screen in the home, in a lean-back, high-attention context.
Video delivered elsewhere can be effective, but it isn’t CTV. It’s digital video. The distinction matters because screen context fundamentally changes attention, impact and outcomes.
A note on OEM innovation
That definition continues to evolve. Television manufacturers are increasingly introducing formats such as EPG placements, home-screen ads and pause ads delivered directly through the TV operating system.
These formats don’t change what CTV is, they extend it, bringing digital flexibility onto the television screen rather than pulling TV advertising towards mobile or web environments.
Fragmentation creates a familiar tension
Because CTV is fragmented, the industry often finds itself optimising for two competing realities:
- what looks good on the PCA
- and what actually drives outcomes
This tension exists across advertising, but it is amplified in CTV because so much is visible and measurable in real time.
Advertisers want more data and need more confidence.
Measurement and momentum
CTV’s advantage over traditional television is data. Exposure can be tied to outcomes, and cross-screen behaviour can be analysed. Yet consistency remains elusive. Platforms report differently, methodologies vary, and definitions don’t always align.
This isn’t a lack of capability. It’s an ecosystem still learning how to simplify without losing accuracy.
One force accelerating that learning curve is political advertising. According to eMarketer, total U.S. Political advertising spend was forecast to exceed $12 billion in the 2024 election cycle, with CTV taking an increasing share. The pressure these budgets introduce tends to accelerate standardisation well beyond election periods.
The creator economy deserves more focus
Another insight from my first year is how under-represented the creator economy remains in mainstream CTV conversations.
Creators already command attention, cultural relevance and loyalty at scale. Their content increasingly appears on television screens via platforms such as YouTube, FAST channels and OTT apps, yet they are still treated as peripheral to the “TV” conversation.
If CTV genuinely reflects how audiences consume video today, creators should sit closer to the centre of how the industry defines its future.
So what’s changed for me?
For those already deep in CTV, none of this will sound radical. But that, in itself, is the point. The industry’s biggest challenges are no longer hidden, they are simply waiting to be addressed at scale.
CTV would benefit from more people entering it from outside traditional TV and CTV circles. Fresh perspectives from more mature or adjacent parts of the advertising ecosystem can help tighten processes, improve methodologies and strip away unnecessary jargon that slows execution rather than enabling it.
CTV is an ecosystem where complexity can’t be hidden, where measurement matters, and where the screen still matters.
And that’s precisely why CTV is the most exciting part of the advertising industry right now. It doesn’t replace other channels, it complements them.
