Report: Streaming takes majority of primetime upfront ad dollars
August 12, 2026



Media Dynamics Inc (MDI) reports that, for the first time, streaming in the US captured more primetime upfront ad dollars than linear TV as the shift to streaming continues.

MDI estimates that advertisers invested $16.6 billion in linear TV buys and $17.2 billion in streaming for a grand total of $33.8 billion. This is up 9.1 per cent over last season’s allocation thanks to a nearly 30% increase in streaming spending. In contrast, the broadcast TV networks, though still benefiting from advertiser interest in their major sports programming, were down by 5.3 per cent. Finally, cable once again took the biggest hit, down 7.7 per cent.


Continuing their pressure on all sellers to keep a lid on CPM hikes, the buyers paid only $41.65 per thousand adults for 30-second announcements on the broadcast TV networks, down 4.2 per cent from last season, while cable’s average CPM tumbled by 8.5 per cent to only $17.70. Similar pressures contributed to the ongoing decline in streaming CPMs, with FASTs, in particular, lowering their CPMs in a bid to increase their share of time sales.

Overall, the average streaming CPM for adults declined by 4.9 per cent to $25.90. As a result, primetime CPMs – counting both linear TV and streaming – were down by 6.2 per cent. As always, there are exceptions, with some sellers holding the line and a few raising their CPMs.

It should be noted, says MDI, that an additional $12 billion was probably invested in upfront linear TV buys when non-primetime buys are included for linear TV’s early AM, daytime, weekend, early news and late-night TV fare, plus national syndication. Consequently, this platform still captures more upfront dollars in aggregate than the various ad-supported streaming services. In addition, streaming accounts for only 25 per cent of the available primetime ad GRPs, due to the fact that a sizeable proportion of its viewing time consists of ad-free services, while those that do carry ads feature many fewer per hour than their linear TV counterparts. Despite this, streaming received more than half of the 2026-27 upfront’s primetime ad dollars.