I read MediaNews4U’s story on the TAM report on Saturday and reposted it with my quick thoughts on LinkedIn, the way I usually do. That should have been it. But I had the actual report with me, and with the tournament now somewhere between the Round of 16 and the Round of 8, I went back and read it again, slower this time. One question has stayed with me since.
The question with no spreadsheet answer
Is CTV good enough on its own now? Or does it still need Linear alongside it for some more time, simply because CTV hasn’t fully proven itself yet?
I don’t sign off on media plans myself, so I can’t answer this from a budget sheet. But somewhere, a CMO and a media team at a brand that went CTV-only during this tournament already faced this question for real, not as a thought exercise. I find myself wondering what they ran into. Did it work out cleanly for them, or did they spend the tournament quietly worried they’d missed out on reach?
The case CTV seems to be building
Here’s what makes me think this isn’t too early to ask. CTV in this report isn’t behaving like a smaller version of Linear anymore. It’s attracting a different set of advertisers, at a scale that doesn’t look like an experiment. That’s not testing the waters. That looks like a decision already made.
But then I hold back. One tournament. About sixty matches. A few advertisers who went early. That’s still a small sample, not proof. CTV may need a couple more big properties like this before anyone can confidently say it doesn’t need Linear standing next to it.
So, both. For now.
Maybe, for now, the honest answer is both. Not because nobody can decide, but because CTV is still building its case, one tournament at a time. Not enough evidence yet to drop Linear. Also not enough left to say Linear is clearly ahead either.
The part under the surface
Which brings me to the harder question. If CTV keeps building this case, tournament after tournament, where does that leave Linear a few years from now? I’m not saying Linear is in trouble because of one World Cup. But maybe, somewhere under the surface, something has quietly started to shift, even if nothing looks different on top yet. Icebergs don’t announce themselves. They just quietly get smaller from underneath while everyone keeps admiring the part that’s still visible.
What’s probably bothering a few CMOs right now
I think this is what’s likely on a few CMOs’ minds too, whether they’ll admit it in a meeting or not. Is CTV good enough alone. Should we keep spending on both a while longer. And if CTV keeps proving itself, is this the year Linear quietly stopped being the obvious first choice, without anyone actually announcing it.
I don’t have answers to any of these. It reminds me a bit of that old line in marketing ”half of your marketing spend works, you just don’t know which half. Maybe it’s the same story here. Except this time it isn’t the money that’s in question. It’s which side of the television actually works.
And honestly, nobody’s fully sure of that yet. Including the person writing this, who spent an entire Sunday finding that out the hard way.
There’s one more thread in this report I’ve deliberately left alone here — it deserves its own note, not a rushed mention at the end of this one. I’ll save that for when I’ve actually made sense of it myself.
About the Author
Prakash Sankaranarayanan is CMO, MediaNews4U” and, by his own admission, a self-styled marketing expert and keen observer of invisible dots, who somehow makes them add up.
(Views are personal)
