What you will find in the article:
- Connected TVs account for 53 per cent of premium video advertising in Europe.
- Programmatic video advertising buying grew by 44 per cent year-on-year.
- Live broadcasts accounted for 32 per cent of ad views.
- More than half of adverts contain extended data fields.
- The average advert completion rate exceeds 90% on CTV devices.
Connected TVs (CTVs) have become the dominant platform for premium video advertising in Europe. In the first half of 2026, CTV accounted for 53 per cent of all premium video ad views, according to the regular Video Monetisation Report by FreeWheel, which is part of the Comcast group.
The total number of premium video ad views in Europe rose by 20 per cent year-on-year. Programmatic video ad buying grew even faster, with volumes increasing by 44 per cent. According to the study’s authors, this growth is primarily driven by European broadcasters’ efforts to integrate linear and digital advertising inventory.
CTV’s share of premium video advertising in Europe has thus doubled since 2023. Programmatically bought advertising on CTV grew by 9 per cent year-on-year, whilst the number of unique advertisers using automated ad buying increased by a quarter in both Europe and the US.
Another significant change in the first half of the year was the return of live content. The share of ad views during live broadcasts in Europe rose from 25 per cent in the second half of 2025 to 32 per cent in the first half of this year.
The study also highlights the expansion of addressable advertising. More than half of ad requests now include extended data fields, which enable more precise campaign targeting. The most commonly used piece of information is the genre of the content being watched, which appeared in 57 per cent of data-enriched requests.
The number of ad views targeted at specific audiences rose by 11 per cent year-on-year in Europe. In the US, growth stood at five per cent.
According to FreeWheel, premium video continues to maintain high levels of viewer engagement. The average completion rate for ad formats before, during and after a video exceeded 90 per cent across the three most common types of CTV devices.
“CTV and streaming are opening up greater and more accessible opportunities for advertisers. Through programmatic buying, they make high-quality advertising inventory available to a wider range of advertisers and enable even smaller companies to compete,” said Emmanuel Josserand, senior director of brand, agency and market relations at Comcast Advertising. According to him, European broadcasters will need to further develop their streaming and programmatic strategies in order to keep pace with the rapidly changing media landscape and the growing influence of artificial intelligence.
Source: mediaguru.cz