Streaming TV has reached an inflection point.
As audiences continue to shift away from linear environments, media buyers are following, bringing significant investment into streaming TV. But while demand is accelerating, the infrastructure needed to support deal IDs at scale hasn’t evolved at the same pace, creating fragmentation and inefficiencies in how streaming campaigns are activated and managed.
At our recent Ad Break(fast) event in London, leading agencies, media owners, and technology partners gathered to explore what it will take to solve the growing disconnect between where streaming media is being consumed and how it’s being bought.
The growth of streaming is outpacing operational frameworks
Streaming TV has evolved beyond an emerging channel and forms a core part of media plans. UK CTV investment alone is heading toward £3B+ by 2028, and the share of programmatic spend flowing through PMPs jumped from 66% to 88% in a single year. Yet, the way streaming inventory is transacted still reflects legacy programmatic workflows often built for a different era of digital advertising.
This introduces friction across the supply chain, such as fragmented signals across platforms, inconsistent deal structures, and limited visibility into performance drivers.
As a result, activating streaming campaigns at scale can feel more complex than it should be.
“Streaming is scaling quickly, but the infrastructure supporting deal activation hasn’t always evolved at the same pace. Simplifying how buyers activate and manage deals will be key to unlocking the next phase of growth.”
James Wilhite, VP of Product
Index Exchange
The opportunity ahead isn’t just about scaling streaming further, but about simplifying how it works in practice.
Transparency is now essential
As complexity increases, so does the demand for clarity.
Buyers today are asking more direct questions about how their campaigns are executed, including:
- Where’s my media running?
- What signals are influencing optimisation?
- How are decisions being made across the supply chain?
These aren’t new questions, but they’re becoming more urgent in streaming environments, where fragmentation can limit visibility.
“As streaming grows, transparency becomes even more important. Buyers want confidence in how inventory is sourced, how deals are structured, and ultimately how their investment is driving results.”
Helen Keelan, Head of Sales, General Market EMEA
LG Ads
Transparency is no longer just a principle. It’s a requirement for trust, performance, and long-term investment in the open internet.
Deals are evolving from access to strategy
Programmatic deals now play a more strategic role than simple access to inventory. When it comes to streaming, they’re becoming something more vital. Today, deals are increasingly used to define supply paths, structure the relationship between buyer and streaming publisher, control the quality and flow of signals, and improve the predictability of outcomes. This shift reflects a broader change in how buyers approach activation, moving from execution to strategy.
“A well-structured CTV deal provides consistent access to premium, brand-safe inventory with transparent pricing, high-quality audience data, and effective frequency and measurement controls to drive efficient, scalable campaign performance.”
Tim Cady, Managing Partner, PMX Lift
Publicis Groupe
As streaming matures, the role of deals will continue to expand, becoming a central mechanism for driving both efficiency and performance.
What better deal activation looks like in practice
As deals become more strategic, the opportunity isn’t just to use them more, but to use them more effectively.
In streaming environments, stronger deal activation typically includes:
- Curated supply paths: Prioritising high-quality streaming inventory through curated marketplaces, rather than relying on broad, open access.
- Richer signal integration: Leveraging contextual, content-level, and supply-side signals to better inform targeting and optimisation decisions.
- Closer alignment between buyers and publishers: Structuring deals that reflect shared goals around outcomes, not just access or pricing.
- More consistent deal frameworks: Reducing fragmentation by standardising how deals are set up, measured, and optimised across partners.
- Decisioning closer to the impression: Applying intelligence on the sell side to improve efficiency and reduce duplication across the supply chain.
Together, these approaches help simplify activation, improve transparency, and drive more consistent performance in streaming campaigns.
Adding decisioning on the sell side
Historically, optimisation has largely taken place downstream within DSPs and buying platforms. But as signal fragmentation increases, this model becomes less effective.
Increasingly, the industry is moving toward sell-side decisioning, where intelligence and signal enrichment are applied closer to the impression, unlocking richer supply-side signals for media buyers. This proximity enables faster decision-making, which in turn reduces operational complexity and fosters improved alignment between buyers and streaming publishers.
By moving decisioning upstream, the ecosystem can operate with greater efficiency, transparency, and control, while enabling more scalable access to high-quality streaming TV inventory.
Progress depends on collaboration
No single player can solve the complexity of streaming alone.
As the ecosystem continues to evolve, progress will depend on collaboration across buyers, streaming publishers, and technology partners.
“Streaming presents a huge opportunity for the industry, but it requires collaboration across the ecosystem. Buyers, publishers, and technology partners all have a role to play in making activation simpler and more effective.”
Alys Donnelly, Head of Media Operations
WPP
Shared frameworks, clearer standards, and closer alignment across the supply chain will be essential to making streaming work at scale.
What comes next
Streaming TV isn’t just growing; it’s reshaping how programmatic operates.
The next phase won’t be defined by more tools or more complexity, but by simpler, more transparent, and more efficient ways of activating media.
That means:
- Clearer supply paths
- Stronger signal integrity
- Decisioning closer to the impression
- And greater control for buyers
Done right, this shift has the potential to unlock more sustainable performance across the open internet.
Looking to activate streaming deals more effectively? Our team can help you simplify setup and drive better outcomes.
