The story. Streaming is the biggest slice of total TV viewing, but the slice an advertiser can buy is a different pie. Within ad-supported viewing, cable and broadcast still hold a majority. (AdExchanger Content Studio, 12 October 2026)
01What happened
- Total viewing favours streaming. Nielsen’s Gauge put streaming at 47.6% of all TV viewing in April 2026, more than cable and broadcast combined.
- That total includes ad-free tiers. Advertisers cannot buy those tiers, so the headline overstates the buyable audience.
- Ad-supported viewing is more balanced. Nielsen’s Ad-Supported Gauge put cable and broadcast at 51.8% of ad-supported viewing among Persons 2+ in Q2 2026.
- Adults 18+ lean further to linear. The same gauge shows cable and broadcast at 55.6% of ad-supported viewing among adults 18+.
- The argument is about value per dollar. The author rates linear and streaming on reach, frequency, precision, ad exposure and delivery integrity, and says linear leads on four of the five.
- Ease of buying is part of streaming’s pull. Streaming works like digital media, while linear has meant bigger budgets, upfront commitments and fragmented sellers.
This is a sponsored piece from a TV buying platform, Continuum, which sells the linear workflow it praises. The Nielsen figures are the checkable part; the value ranking is the author’s view.
02What it means inside a GAM network
Budgets are being argued on the wrong denominator. “Share of viewing” counts hours, and a buyer funds impressions. When the denominator is ad-supported viewing, the gap that fuelled the shift to streaming narrows sharply.
For a publisher selling CTV, that cuts both ways. Buyers who read the Gauge literally will keep pushing dollars toward streaming. Buyers who read the ad-supported number will ask a harder question: what does this impression deliver that linear would not?
The answer streaming can win on is precision and addressability. The piece cites a dining chain that used CTV to target ZIP-code radiuses around 162 locations. It then added local broadcast live sports where several restaurants sat close together. The channel was chosen for the job, not the trend.
That is a different sales conversation from “we are where the audience went”. It rewards inventory you can describe by audience, location and measurable outcome, and it penalises inventory that is only a share-of-viewing story.
One caution on the evidence: the piece does not say how reach, frequency or delivery integrity were scored, so treat the five-way comparison as an argument, not a benchmark.
Streaming's lead is in total viewing, not in ad-supported viewing.
03What publishers should do about it
04The bottom line
Streaming’s lead is in total viewing, not in ad-supported viewing. Sell the outcome your impressions deliver, because that is the scorecard buyers are being told to use.