What did we learn from the Connected TV World Summit Media Impacts in 2025?

Attended by over 700 television industry professionals from 26 countries in London the Connected TV (CTV) World Summit reflected on the TV media industry impacts and the systemic challenges that continue to develop and affect TV media markets now and looking ahead.

The key learnings for TV advertisers and agencies alike were as follows:

·      Only six-to-seven CTV or Subscriptions Video on Demand (SVOD) platforms are likely to remain in business in the mid-long term including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ delivering scale and reach, whilst mass consolidation amongst the smaller players is inevitable over the coming years.

·      Original content, which drove SVOD subscriptions and lifetime value for individual platforms behind their ‘walled gardens’, is now being sold to competitors too to bolster overall revenue streams.

·      ‘Bundling’ of multiple CTV/SVOD discounted consumer offers by media owners is a key driver for subscription growth looking ahead. 

·      Lower tier advertising subscription costs are now driving growth in SVOD platforms – 55% of new subscribers to Netflix are now coming via the lower cost monthly subscriptions – creating a significant mass TV advertising opportunity outside of standard linear TV advertising and BVOD.

·      Whilst Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ now all carry third party TV advertising and are independently audited on the BARB panel (independent audience measurement) most CTV channels are not.

·      Prime video to introduce new interactive business model for advertisers later this year so consumers can utilise their remote control to buy TV advertised products immediately via the Amazon Prime transactional website. 

·      Many smaller CTV channels face many of the same problems that have persisted in recent years for advertisers – there's no independent auditing system to confirm delivery of content or audience viewing, no frequency caps on advertising with the same copy being delivered over and over again and poor delivery of content leading to buffering or non-delivery of content.  On Netflix there were apparently over 100,000 consumer complaints during and after the recent Jake Paul Tyson fight that was watched by over 108million viewers concurrently.

Pete Mills, Managing Director of SmartResponse, commented – “Whilst CTV continues to evolve in the UK there are clearly going to be several growing opportunities for DRTV advertisers looking ahead. 

We are excited to see the introduction of the Amazon’ TV to Till’ strategy in H2 2025 which could represent the ‘Holy Grail’ for DRTV clients; the ability to combine highly responsive DRTV advertising, delivered to precision audiences who can buy products and services immediately via Prime (assuming their products are listed on Amazon.co.uk already) to be delivered in 24 hours”.