In 2019, the $36-billion video ad industry remains the only outlier in this respect, and the reason is simple: the rise of over-the-top (OTT) TV advertising. We don't break out OTT ad spending from the nonmobile total, but, for example, Hulu is expected to gross nearly $2 billion this year in ad revenues.
According to data from Extreme Reach, 44% of all digital video ad impressions the company serviced in Q4 2018 went to connected TV devices. And connected TV could play an even larger role in the video ad market if ad-supported streaming continues to expand. The Roku Channel, which launched in 2017, offers free ad-supported content to Roku’s 22 million registered users. Amazon, which already owned Twitch, further expanded into the ad-supported streaming market this year with IMDb Freedive. And the expected launch of NBCUniversal’s streaming service in 2020 will bring another major player to the ad-supported OTT market.
Some of this content is being viewed on mobile devices, according to October 2018 data from video measurement and intelligence platform Conviva. But 56% of time spent viewing OTT video worldwide is on connected TV.