Observed Signal · Dec 16, 2025 · Industry Analysis · Source: VideoWeek · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
CTV Ads for All, Yet Buyers Hold Back
CTV Has Ads for Everyone – So Why Isn’t Everyone Buying Them? argues that despite rising CTV supply and capabilities, the buying experience remains overly complex, deterring many buyers—especially SMEs and independent agencies. The piece notes fragmentation across platforms and a steep learning curve that can distract planners from campaign goals. It acknowledges valuable behind-the-scenes advances in optimization and efficiency but argues these won’t move the needle unless the front end is intuitive. The author envisions AI-powered, chat-based dashboards enabling buyers to manage reach, relevance, and outcomes via natural language prompts, making the process more accessible. It highlights UK dynamics where SMEs account for a large share of digital ad spend and cites Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 collaborating to simplify buying for smaller buyers. It also warns that without log-level transparency and auditable data, a black-box market could hinder trust even as CTV scales.
Industry-relevant analysis emphasizing simplification of CTV buying to unlock SME spend
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- The article is authored by Andy Jones, VP of Broadcast and CTV, EMEA at PubMatic.
- The expansion of CTV has caused an explosion of supply, while the buying experience has grown more complex.
- Cited IAB UK data: almost half of the UK’s digital ad spend comes from SMEs, largely via Google and Meta.
- Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 jointly led a move to make big-screen advertising more accessible for smaller buyers.
- AI is described as transforming dashboards into chat-based interfaces to manage reach, relevance, and outcomes.
- Independent UK agencies are described as being in a period of growth, with SMEs often limited by resources and complex tech stacks.
- The piece emphasizes the need for transparency and access to log-level data to prevent a 'black box' market.
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An ADWEEK House Cannes fireside co-hosted with Tatari highlighted structural issues in programmatic connected-TV (CTV) buying. Philip Inghelbrecht, CEO and co‑founder of Tatari, argued that CTV’s buying architecture was inherited from digital display and is ill-suited for premium streaming inventory, where a large share of impressions come from a small number of publishers. He said programmatic CTV is useful for narrow targeting and retargeting but is not a substitute for broad-reach TV buys, and recommended moving automation closer to the ad server to cut manual processes. Inghelbrecht also expressed skepticism about current AI in advertising, calling much of it workflow automation rather than intelligence that improves decision‑making. The piece was published in partnership with Tatari and reported by Ashley Cisneros Mejia.
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