Business
2026 TV Advertising Faces Challenges in the Age of Digital Growth
The Advertising Landscape in 2025: A Year of Disruption and Growth
In 2025, the advertising industry faced unprecedented challenges and transformations. AI disruptions cascaded through every segment of the landscape, fundamentally altering how brands connect with consumers. The seismic shifts were exemplified by Omnicom’s landmark $13 billion acquisition of IPG, creating a marketing Goliath poised to dominate the market. Amid these disruptions, tariff uncertainties created turbulence in various sectors, underscoring the complex dynamics at play.
Growth Amidst Chaos
Despite the numerous hurdles, the ad business navigated through 2025 with surprising resilience. WPP Media upgraded its growth forecast to 8.8%, while Madison & Wall projected an even more optimistic 11% increase for the year. Both firms anticipate that this upward trajectory will continue into 2026, with WPP Media forecasting 7.1% growth (excluding political advertising) and Madison & Wall expecting a 6.6% jump for the same period.
An Era of “Creative Destruction”
As the industry stepped into 2026, it became clear that this year would be just as disruptive as its predecessor. This era of “creative destruction,” as characterized by WPP Media, highlights the profound shifts reshaping the ad landscape. Traditional frameworks are falling away, making way for new dynamics:
- Streaming Video vs. Linear Television: Streaming platforms are not just supplementing but increasingly cannibalizing traditional TV viewership.
- Retail Media’s Rise: Retail-driven advertising budgets are diverging towards innovative platforms, pulling resources away from established digital channels.
- AI’s Influence on Search Behavior: AI-powered engines are starting to redefine how users search for and discover content, altering traditional brand engagement models.
- Creator-Driven Content: Creators are surpassing professionally produced media, reshaping the content consumption landscape.
Each shift recalibrates the competitive scoreboard, creating winners and losers as businesses adapt to capture emerging value.
Hollywood’s Double Blow
For Hollywood, these changes present a double challenge. While sectors like commerce media, social media, and search advertising continue to experience double-digit growth, traditional television is witnessing a dramatic decline. Madison & Wall projects a 12% drop in national TV ad spend and a 4% decrease in local TV advertising in Q3 of 2026.
Despite this dip, WPP Media notes that total TV advertising reached $167.4 billion in 2025, a modest growth of 0.6%. However, the overall share of global ad revenue attributed to television has steadily declined, from 15.8% in 2024 down to a projected 13.9% by 2026. This shift illustrates a significant migration of advertiser budgets towards performance-driven digital channels, indicating a shrinking pie for television.
Streaming’s Growth Plateau
In the content arena, digital media has emerged as the only significant growth driver, heavily influenced by platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Meta. For example, Meta’s Reels short-form video product has achieved a remarkable $50 billion annual run rate, suggesting that there’s substantial growth potential still available, albeit at the expense of traditional television recipients.
As traditional entertainment companies adapt, they are increasingly focusing on building programmatic advertising capabilities and enticing smaller advertisers alongside the established blue-chip brands that have dominated the TV landscape for years.
Questions on Television’s Future
As 2026 unfolds, several critical questions loom large for the television sector:
- Sustained Growth for Streaming: Can streaming platforms maintain their momentum amid signs of subscription fatigue?
- Viability of Sports Rights: Will the economics of sports broadcasting work for traditional networks or migrate to tech platforms with different monetization strategies?
- Attracting Small and Mid-Size Advertisers: Can traditional TV ad sellers capture revenue streams from smaller advertisers as effectively as giants like Google and Meta?
Systemic Risks Ahead
Beyond immediate market dynamics, the advertising industry faces systemic challenges. While tariff uncertainties that disrupted planning in previous years have eased, the threat of tariffs persists. Additionally, potential regulations targeting pharmaceutical advertising, as voiced by political figures, could significantly impact revenues.
As Madison & Wall’s Brian Wieser points out, multiple headwinds are gathering. Unpredictable tariff policies complicate long-term strategies for global brands, while sector-specific risks and geopolitical tensions heighten the challenges ahead.
As we navigate through 2026, the implications for the advertising landscape are profound—and the journey promises to be anything but predictable. Buckle up; it’s going to be a wild ride.