Over the course of Q3 2025, est. national linear TV ad reach grew by 4.2% year-over-year, to $8.77 billion and ad minutes climbed as well, up 2.4% to 5.3 million. Interestingly, however: Household TV ad impressions declined by 2.7% to 1.67 trillion, and ad airings dipped a modest 1%, to 12.2 million for the quarter.
The differing trend depending on the metric can tell us a few things — primarily that TV is finding a bit of a baseline.
TV ad reach, airings and minutes all increased or decreased by reasonable levels year-over-year, and those figures fall in line with trends from the last few years as well. Linear TV ad minutes have grown marginally over the course of this year, from 5.13 million in Q1 to 5.30 million in Q3, though that growth is also pretty standard when looking back at 2023 and 2024. TV ad minutes climb as football and fall TV schedules start to take over the calendar, and that’s where the spend increase comes in.
iSpot shows 10.7% more ad spend during national linear NFL games in Q3 this year (including preseason), while reach climbed double digits year-over-year as well. Similarly, college football saw ad spend climb by an impressive 22.5% year-over-year, with its own double-digit growth in TV ad impressions.
Increases like that among TV’s top programs — NFL and college football games ranked No. 1 and 2 in Q3 — help explain the growth in spend, even as impressions dip slightly. Audiences are consolidating around these premium, live programs in many cases, helping drive up the cost of advertising.
iSpot data showed that nine of the top 20 programs by impression deliveries were news-related (live) and four of the top 10 were related to sports (NFL, college football, MLB and SportsCenter). So when dollars and reach are leaving TV, they’re not leaving this sort of programming. Instead, they’re leaving some of the medium’s lesser properties.
By the same token, however, networks that were less focused on new programming still delivered significant reach in many cases. ION was No. 7 by TV ad impressions, despite relying more heavily on syndicated shows. HGTV, Hallmark, Game Show Network and Food Network all lean more heavily on reruns as well, and also rank among the top 20 networks by reach.
Top 20 networks by share of household TV ad impressions in Q3 2025 (via iSpot)Though the climb for ad minutes in Q3 does fall in line with increases in previous quarters, it’s still the highest level ad minutes have been at since the start of 2023. Combined with decreased overall airings, there are links between pharma’s larger presence on TV (13% of spend vs. 11.6% last Q3) and the longer time on TV.
iSpot data shows that the average length for prescription drug ads increased from 48.4 seconds in Q3 2024 to 50.3 seconds in Q3 2025. Considering the 5% increase in pharma ad airings as well year-over-year, that would help explain part of why minutes rose overall; Pharma ads were a larger part of TV, and were longer.
That could be a trend going forward as well.
Though many drug companies have been scaling back advertising in the wake of FDA letters being sent out in September, one potential next step for these brands could be longer ads to more fully include safety disclosures. Another could simply be fewer ads, too. But there’s at least a reality where pharma advertisers are decreasing airings while increasing minutes (unlike the Q3 data, that shows both airings and minutes climbing).
Further minutes increases in the future could also come from networks with less live — specifically sports and news — programming, where consumer moves from streaming have been felt more sharply. ION, which is syndicated content beyond a selection of live WNBA and NWSL games, was No. 7 by household TV ad impressions in Q3. But the network also added nearly 1,000 more ad minutes year-over-year.
Various cable networks showed increases in ad minutes along similar lines. That’s not a knock on value. More, it’s a note about the current state of the industry, and how many cable networks require more ad support than they may have previously, as audiences continue to consolidate linear viewing around premium programming and/or “comfort food.”
Source: tvrev.com