Welcome to The TV Room. Your weekly digest of television, streaming, and digital media insights that matter.

This week we're covering:

• 🤔 Rethinking CTV for TV Advertisers

• 🏀 Hornets Broadcast the Local Buzz

• 🎥 Creative Spotlight: Kia: “Shhh… It’s Zombie Proof”

• 📡 T-Mobile’s Vistar Vision

Study Shows TV Advertisers Need to Rethink CTV

A new study reveals TV advertisers are leaving money on the table by over-investing in traditional linear TV.

According to "The Efficiency Curve" report from LG Ad Solutions and iSpot, most brands could dramatically improve their campaign performance by shifting just 6.3% more of their TV impressions to Connected TV (CTV).

While viewers spend 45.8% of their TV time on streaming platforms, advertisers only allocate 32.5% of their budgets there. Meanwhile, linear TV commands 67.5% of ad spending despite accounting for just 54.2% of viewing time.

The industry imbalance leads to serious inefficiencies. Linear TV campaigns are hitting viewers with an average frequency of 26.5 times – and in some cases up to 150 times – while CTV maintains a more reasonable 7.3 average frequency.

Here's the breakdown:

• Small shifts make a big impact: Reallocating just 6.3% of impressions from linear TV to CTV can lead to more balanced ad frequency, broader reach, and higher conversion rates.

• Top performers lead the way: Brands that are already allocating an average of 23.7% of their TV impressions to CTV are seeing improved campaign results compared to those allocating just 17.4%.

• Frequency efficiency: Linear TV campaigns have an average frequency of 26.5, often leading to oversaturation. In contrast, CTV campaigns have a more efficient average frequency of 7.3, reducing ad fatigue among viewers.

"Modern marketers need to make every invested dollar work harder," says Tony Marlow, CMO at LG Ad Solutions. The study suggests many brands are "over-invested in cable and broadcast, leaving room for CTV to drive incremental reach, deeper engagement, and stronger outcomes."

The solution is simple: Start with CTV to establish reach, then use linear TV to build incrementally – a strategy that both maximizes audience reach and prevents ad fatigue through more balanced frequency.

Read More:

• Study Finds Advertisers Benefit From TV Campaigns Using More CTV - Forbes

🎙️ Jason Fairchild on Performance TV

In this episode, Jason Fairchild, CEO and co-founder of tvScientific, talks about lessons from OpenX, creating the performance TV category, and whether big players like The Trade Desk and AppLovin might enter the space.

Jason shares how CTV can shift ad dollars from search and social by focusing on transparency and measurable outcomes, while exploring the challenges of building a new adtech category and the future of CTV advertising.

What You’ll Learn:

• 📊 Shifting Ad Dollars: How tvScientific is moving budgets from search and social to CTV.

• 🖥️ Transparent Results: Why advanced attribution tools matter for advertisers.

• 📈 The Future of CTV: How brand and performance advertising are converging on CTV.

TV Industry Updates

• Sports streaming shakeup: DirecTV launched MySports, a $70 monthly service with NFL games and 40 channels from Disney, Fox, and NBCUniversal.

• Venu's demise: Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. scrapped their joint sports streaming venture after settling an antitrust lawsuit with Fubo.

• Trump vs late night: The president-elect threatened Comcast over Seth Meyers' NBC show, demanding the company "pay a BIG price" for what he called political hits.

• NBA returns to broadcast: The Charlotte Hornets partnered with WSOC to air games on free TV for the first time since 2008, reaching 1.3 million homes.

• Airline ad nosedives: Pakistan Airlines pulled an ad showing a plane pointed at the Eiffel Tower after social media users noted similarities to 9/11 imagery.

Stay up to date on the latest in TV advertising by joining our Slack community!

Creative Spotlight: Kia: “Shhh… It’s Zombie Proof”

Kia created a zombie apocalypse-themed commercial that showed off their EVs' silent operation as a survival advantage in a world overrun by the undead.

The Details:

• French director Francois Rousselet, fresh from the John Lewis Christmas ad, directed the Australian spot

• The cast included Luke Arnold (INXS miniseries), Tess Haubrich (Spiderhead), and Hamilton musical star Chloe Zuel

• TV personality Jamie Durie made a cameo appearance as a "zombie tradie"

• The ad promoted both the Kia EV5 and EV9 models through a storyline of everyday errands during a zombie outbreak

What We Loved: The creative team turned EVs' characteristic quietness from a potential drawback into a compelling advantage through an entertaining zombie survival scenario.

Marketing Mix

• Leo's big leap: Publicis Groupe merged its Leo Burnett and Publicis Worldwide agencies into a single creative network called Leo.

• Kimberly-Clark's agency shuffle: The paper giant divided its media and creative accounts among IPG, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, and WPP.

• Walmart's brand refresh: Walmart unveiled a subtle brand refresh, with ambitions for its spark logo to stand alone as a symbol of the brand.

• T-Mobile's ad expansion: T-Mobile acquired Vistar Media for $600 million, boosting its digital-out-of-home advertising capabilities.

• Viamedia's growth spurt: Viamedia signed six new ad sales deals, expanding its network to 93 providers and enhancing support for local advertisers in 74 markets.

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