Total TV Ad Impressions Down 3.73% in First Half: iSpot Report

Total TV ad impressions on streaming and linear TV dipped 3.73% to 4.23 trillion in the first half of 2024, according to a new report from iSpot.tv .

Primetime on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox accounted for 261.9 billion ad impressions and generated $3.97 billion of the $22.2 billion in ad spending across linear TV.

Linear primetime impressions were up 2.62% from a year ago when original programming was curtailed by the strike by the writers and actors unions, and now account for 26% of all national linear TV ad impressions, iSpot said.

Other than weekend afternoons, all of the other dayparts for linear TV had lower impressions with daytime down 3.75%, early fringe off 1.36% and early morning dropping 6.48%.

Sports scored big on linear TV. NBA basketball was the top program by reach during the first half, accounting for 2.06% of ad impressions. Ads on NBA programming also generated ad attention tha twas 12% above the norm.

The Caitlin Clark effect doubled the number of TV ad impressions for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament (even though fewer games were played) and a seven-game Stanley Cup Final fueled a 48% increase in ad impressions for the NHL.

The top network in terms of share of TV ad impressions was CBS, with 8.03%

CBS was followed by ABC, NBC, Fox News, ESPN, Ion, HGTV, Univision, MSNBC and Hallmark Channel.

Telemundo’s ad impressions were up 13%. Other big gainers included  MSNBC, up 2.4%, and Hallmark Channel, up 2%.

Following the NBA on the list of top programs were men’s college basketball, the NFL, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , NCIS , Good Morning America , Friends , The Price Is Right , The Big Bang Theory and SportsCenter .

The top advertisers by impressions were Progressive, Domino’s, Burger King, Verizon Communications, Liberty Mutual, Consumer Cellular, Wendy’s, Subway, TurboTax and Allstate.