All the statistics
| Topic | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Spend | Auto brands spent more on streaming TV than on linear TV for the first time: $1.41 billion against $1.30 billion through the third quarter of 2026.1 |
| Spend | 51% of Kia's third-quarter 2026 TV spend went to streaming.1 |
| Spend | US franchised dealers spent a record $9.96 billion on advertising in 2025, about $739 per vehicle sold; TV, with broadcast and streaming reported together, took 10.5%.19 |
| Who buys | Local dealers and dealer associations place about four in five automotive streaming TV impressions.1 |
| Who buys | Local automotive streaming TV impressions grew 28% in 2026.1 |
| Who buys | In a 2026 survey, 61 of 70 dealerships (87%) had streaming TV or OTT in their budget, and 46 of 49 (94%) planned to hold or raise it.17 |
| Who buys | 86% of auto marketers in Innovid's 2026 outlook survey said they are increasing CTV spend, and 78% named fragmentation as the top challenge.21 |
| Reach | Netflix's ad-supported plan has more than 250 million global monthly active viewers.2 |
| Reach | Amazon DSP reaches Roku and Fire TV together, about 80 million US connected TV households, roughly 80% of the market.3 |
| Reach | Thursday Night Football on Prime Video averaged 15.3 million viewers in 2025.4 |
| Reach | Tubi, a free streaming service, grew from 18% to 22% of monthly streaming users in 2026, passing Apple TV at 21%.5 |
| Reach | Streaming made up 48.6% of US TV viewing time in May 2026, ahead of cable (20.4%) and broadcast (19.2%), per Nielsen's The Gauge.17 |
| Reach | Amazon says its ad-supported streaming TV reaches more than 200 million US viewers a month.24 |
| Free tiers | Forrester predicts at least three subscription streamers will launch free, ad-supported tiers in 2027, with Disney+ the likeliest.5 |
| Ad load | Ad minutes per hour rose 18% across major streaming platforms from January to August 2026.6 |
| Ad load | Paramount+ ran about 9 ad minutes an hour in August 2026, the heaviest load measured.6 |
| Ad load | Streaming subscriber churn held near 4% even as ad-supported plans got about 14% more expensive across 2025 and 2026.7 |
| Ad load | Paramount+, Hulu and Disney+ run roughly 7.5 to 9 ad minutes an hour, while Netflix, Prime Video and Tubi run about 2.4 to 3.7 |
| Creative | 80% of viewers say a bad ad is worse than no ad at all.8 |
| Creative | 15-second streaming spots drove 44% more site visits than 30-second spots, while 30-second spots converted about 7% better when the same advertiser ran both.8 |
| Creative | 40% of viewers are likelier to buy from brands that run a sequence of ads than from brands that repeat one spot.8 |
| Price | Standard streaming TV inventory generally costs $20 to $40 per thousand impressions in 2026.9 |
| Price | Netflix averages around a $30 CPM, and adding targeting can cost up to 40% above the floor.10 |
| Price | Self-serve streaming TV starts at $100 per campaign on Comcast's Universal Ads and $500 on Roku Ads Manager, Disney Campaign Manager and Paramount Ads Manager.11121314 |
| Price | Blended CTV CPMs averaged about $26 in Q2 2026, with most campaigns between $25 and $35 (a CTV seller's figures).22 |
| Price | Ad Age's 2024 agency-average CPMs: Netflix $37.02, Disney+ $29.04, Paramount+ $26.23, Peacock $26.02, Prime Video $24.27, Hulu $23.59, Tubi $17.95.23 |
| Car buyers | Only 29% of car buyers started certain of the vehicle they would buy, down from 37% in 2020.20 |
| Car buyers | Car buyers spent 7 hours 11 minutes researching and shopping online, and 66% considered both new and used vehicles.20 |
| Results | Roku says 87% of its auto campaigns measured by Polk drove incremental vehicle sales (Roku's own claim).15 |
| Results | A 25-store Arizona dealer group reached more than 1.7 million households on Roku Ads Manager at a $7.36 CPM, buying it itself.16 |
| Dealer experience | 64% of surveyed dealership marketers were frustrated by streaming reports listing channels they did not recognize, and 58% had never received show-level reporting.17 |
| Dealer experience | 45 of 46 surveyed dealers (98%) said display or online video swapped in for streaming TV is a different product.17 |
| Meta | Since January 21, 2025, US Meta ads that promote financial products, including auto loans, must run in the Financial Products and Services category, which removes ZIP code targeting and sets a 15-mile minimum radius.18 |
Figures are as published by each source; vendor figures are marked as the vendor's own. Where a source reports a forecast or a survey, the page says so. Last checked November 6, 2026.
What the numbers mean for a dealer
- The market already moved. Automakers lead with streaming, and local dealers buy most of the automotive streaming impressions. A store that is not on streaming TV is being outspent there by its neighbors, not by the brand.
- Breaks are getting fuller. More ad minutes and more free tiers mean more households to reach and more competition in every break. Short spots, rotated, with a weekly frequency cap, hold up better.
- Entry is cheap; checking is hard. A dealer can start for a few hundred dollars, but most dealer marketers cannot see which apps their ads ran on. Accounts in the dealership's name and app-level reports fix that.
- Meta and streaming target differently. Finance offers on Meta lose ZIP targeting; streaming TV keeps it. Plan the two together.