# The State of Streaming > Trade journalism for CTV and streaming: platforms, advertising, measurement, deals, policy. Site URL: https://thestateofstreaming.com/ ## Sections - [Platforms](https://thestateofstreaming.com/platforms/) — Netflix, Disney, YouTube, Prime Video, Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Roku — the streamers themselves. - [Advertising & Ad Tech](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/) — CTV ad buying, DSPs, SSPs, programmatic, the Upfronts and NewFronts, ad-supported tiers. - [Measurement & Data](https://thestateofstreaming.com/measurement-data/) — Nielsen, VideoAmp, iSpot, Comscore, currencies, cross-platform measurement, data clean rooms. - [Business & Deals](https://thestateofstreaming.com/business-deals/) — M&A, earnings, layoffs, exec moves, carriage deals, licensing and distribution. - [Content & Programming](https://thestateofstreaming.com/content-programming/) — Shows, movies, sports rights, original content strategy from the industry lens. - [Devices & Distribution](https://thestateofstreaming.com/devices-distribution/) — Smart TVs, FAST channels, Roku/Amazon/Apple/Google TV platforms, bundling. - [Policy & Regulation](https://thestateofstreaming.com/policy-regulation/) — FCC, FTC, antitrust, privacy, content moderation policy affecting streaming. - [Opinion](https://thestateofstreaming.com/opinion/) — Analysis and argument from the masthead. Labeled opinion, attributed to Staff. - [Quick Bites](https://thestateofstreaming.com/quick-bites/) — TL;DR roundups of the day's must-know items. Three-minute reads. ## Recent articles - [Omnicom Says It's Cutting Out the Ad-Tech Middlemen. The Holdco-Direct Era Just Went Live.](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/omnicom-ai-agent-adtech-disintermediation/) — 2026-05-04 · Advertising & Ad Tech John Wren told the Q1 call the holdco is executing live agent-to-agent buys with publishers via the Ad Context Protocol. Read it as the structural shift the independent ad-tech stack has feared since 2018. - [Apple Services Just Posted Its Sixth Straight Record. The Compounder Hides in Plain Sight.](https://thestateofstreaming.com/business-deals/2026/05/apple-services-q1-fy26-record-trend/) — 2026-05-04 · Business & Deals A $30.97 billion quarter is the headline. The shape of six consecutive all-time records — and the ad surface buried inside the bundle — is what advertisers should plan against. - [YouTube Ads Hit $9.88B in Q1 — The Subscription Mix Is Catching Up](https://thestateofstreaming.com/platforms/2026/05/youtube-q1-2026-ad-revenue-trajectory/) — 2026-05-04 · Platforms A five-quarter chart of YouTube ad revenue makes Pichai's "subs grow faster than ads" framing literal — and reframes Q1's seasonal step-down. - [Meta-AWS Graviton Deal Is the Compute Moat, Disclosed](https://thestateofstreaming.com/opinion/2026/05/meta-aws-graviton-continuous-ai/) — 2026-05-03 · Opinion Matt Garman put a number on Meta's compute advantage — and ATT, GDPR, and TikTok already proved it only compounds. - [Cognition Is the New Currency Layer for CTV Ads](https://thestateofstreaming.com/measurement-data/2026/05/cognition-attention-currency-ctv-ads/) — 2026-05-03 · Measurement & Data Viant's $40M TVision close put cognition inside a DSP as buyers enter the 2026 upfront armed to price against it. - [Charter Lifts Cox Synergies 60% as Comcast Waves Off Cable M&A](https://thestateofstreaming.com/business-deals/2026/05/comcast-charter-merger-talks-resurfacing/) — 2026-05-03 · Business & Deals The $800 million synergy raise, not the merger chatter Wall Street can't help itself with, is the data point that tells you what the next leg of cable strategy looks like. - [Streaming Hit 45.6 Percent of Ad-Supported TV. The Verification Stack Is Catching Up.](https://thestateofstreaming.com/measurement-data/2026/05/ctv-transparency-ad-supported-default-ias/) — 2026-05-03 · Measurement & Data Utzschneider named the Nielsen Gauge controversy as the inflection that pushed verification vendors off the linear playbook. - [DAZN Buys ViewLift After Failing to Buy the RSNs Themselves](https://thestateofstreaming.com/business-deals/2026/05/dazn-viewlift-rsn-infrastructure-pivot/) — 2026-05-03 · Business & Deals Four months after talks to acquire Main Street Sports Group collapsed, the global sports streamer pivots from end-consumer destination to the white-label layer powering 15 pro teams' DTC apps. - [Three Deepfake Laws Hit CTV in 54 Days. No Federal Floor.](https://thestateofstreaming.com/policy-regulation/2026/05/deepfake-ai-state-law-patchwork-q2-2026/) — 2026-05-03 · Policy & Regulation By August 2, three different deepfake regimes will be live for national CTV advertisers: New York's synthetic-performer disclosure, Washington's expanded right of publicity, and California's revised AI Transparency Act. The IAB's... - [Disney Folds Streaming Data Under the Ad Platform Before the Upfront](https://thestateofstreaming.com/platforms/2026/05/disney-exec-reorg-arora-1000-layoffs-leadership/) — 2026-05-03 · Platforms Two memos, two weeks apart, leave Disney with one chain of command for identity, data engineering, and ad monetization heading into May 12. - [The 1961 NFL Antitrust Shield Meets a 2026 Streaming Model](https://thestateofstreaming.com/policy-regulation/2026/05/doj-nfl-streaming-antitrust-fox-sinclair-sba/) — 2026-05-03 · Policy & Regulation DOJ has a probe. The FCC has a docket. Fox and Sinclair have filed. Three federal pressure tracks now run at the same statutory ambiguity, and upfront buyers betting on streaming-only NFL inventory haven't priced the tail-risk. - [FCC's ABC License Order Reaches a Lever That No Longer Fits](https://thestateofstreaming.com/policy-regulation/2026/05/fcc-abc-license-renewal-disney-escalation/) — 2026-05-03 · Policy & Regulation Carr's FCC ordered Disney to refile every ABC license by May 28, two to three years early. - [Machine Cognition Hits Programmatic Ads: 30 Autonomous Campaigns Live on PubMatic](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/machine-cognition-programmatic-ads-agentic-ai/) — 2026-05-03 · Advertising & Ad Tech With Trade Desk Kokai at near-total client penetration, the competitive edge has shifted to verifiable decision traces. - [Netflix's Amazon and Yahoo Targeting Layers Go Live for May 14](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/netflix-amazon-yahoo-q2-targeting-upfronts/) — 2026-05-03 · Advertising & Ad Tech Announced in March, switched on this quarter — the targeting plumbing Netflix's ad stack lacked arrives in time for May 14. - [Netflix Bolts a Discovery Feed Onto Itself, and the Ad-Load Math Comes With It](https://thestateofstreaming.com/content-programming/2026/05/netflix-clips-vertical-video-discovery-war/) — 2026-05-03 · Content & Programming Clips is a primitive, not a content format — but every other app that adopted the primitive monetized it within 24 months. - [NFL Network Goes Dark on Comcast — Disney's First Carriage Test Since the ESPN-NFL Stake Deal](https://thestateofstreaming.com/business-deals/2026/05/nfl-comcast-espn-blackout-first-dispute/) — 2026-05-03 · Business & Deals The 10% NFL stake in ESPN was supposed to align two parties against the distributor. The first time that bet has been priced, Comcast turned off the channel. - [PubMatic's AgenticOS Hits 1,000 Deals as Creative Suite Goes Live](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/pubmatic-agenticos-creative-suite-launch/) — 2026-05-03 · Advertising & Ad Tech Emma Newman's fragmentation thesis is now a procurement question, with PubMatic's May 7 earnings the first test of whether agentic orchestration pays. - [Roku Just Became the Only TV-OS Company Showing Its Ad Math](https://thestateofstreaming.com/platforms/2026/05/roku-q1-2026-print-100m-segment-split/) — 2026-05-03 · Platforms First-itemized $613M ad line at 60.5% gross margin, third-party DSP spend up more than 40%, and a Magnite-powered marketplace shipped 72 hours earlier — Roku's segment-split debut is the open-stack pitch with numbers attached. - [The Roku-TCL Class Action Puts Auto-Update Stewardship on Trial](https://thestateofstreaming.com/devices-distribution/2026/05/roku-tcl-class-action-bricked-tvs/) — 2026-05-03 · Devices & Distribution Else v. Roku is the first federal class action to frame an over-the-air software push as the defect itself — testing whether smart-TV OS providers can ship update contracts that survive a bricked device. - [Meta's 70% of Social Ad Revenue Is the Walled-Garden Math](https://thestateofstreaming.com/opinion/2026/05/social-ad-concentration-omdia-meta-70/) — 2026-05-03 · Opinion Three resets promised to dilute social-ad concentration; Omdia's Aguete shows four platforms now capture over 90%. - [The State of Streaming Has a Cognition Gap That's Already Repricing CTV Ads](https://thestateofstreaming.com/measurement-data/2026/05/state-of-streaming-cognition-gap-conviva-ads/) — 2026-05-03 · Measurement & Data Viant's $40 million TVision acquisition moved cognition inside the DSP while every major viewing report still runs on reach. - [Tubi Hands Amazon DSP First-Look on Its 97M-MAU Audience](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/tubi-amazon-dsp-priority-access/) — 2026-05-03 · Advertising & Ad Tech Fox-owned Tubi's Priority Access turns a free-streaming platform into another walled-garden front door — and Fox's May 11 earnings is the first disclosure window. - [Walmart's CTV Stack Just Became a Required Identity Gateway](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/walmart-vizio-ctv-stack-consolidation/) — 2026-05-03 · Advertising & Ad Tech Connect Select on the buyer side, account-locked Vizio TVs on the consumer side. The independent-stack thesis we ran April 27 now plays out at the device layer, and the audit-surface argument is losing platforms one quarter at a time. - [Agentic AI Just Crossed Into the Workflow, Six Weeks Before NY's Disclosure Cliff](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/04/agentic-ai-creative-production-adobe-deepdub-2026/) — 2026-04-27 · Advertising & Ad Tech Adobe's Firefly Assistant, Deepdub's dubbing co-worker, and WPP Media's YouTube 5K mark the Q1-Q2 2026 shift to agentic AI orchestrating production — six weeks before NY's first synthetic-performer disclosure law takes effect. - [Agentic AI Just Crossed Into the Workflow, Six Weeks Before NY's Disclosure Cliff](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/04/agentic-ai-creative-production-adobe-deepdub-2026-2/) — 2026-04-27 · Advertising & Ad Tech Adobe's Firefly Assistant, Deepdub's dubbing co-worker, and WPP Media's YouTube 5K mark the Q1-Q2 2026 shift to agentic AI orchestrating production — six weeks before NY's first synthetic-performer disclosure law takes effect. - [The Cord-Cutting Cliff Stalled in Q1 2026. The Consensus Hasn't Caught Up.](https://thestateofstreaming.com/devices-distribution/2026/04/cord-cutting-pause-2026-thesis-rewrite-2/) — 2026-04-27 · Devices & Distribution Q3 2025 was the first pay-TV net add since 2017, and Comcast and Charter just narrowed Q1 video losses — but the consensus is still working off Q1 2025's record vMVPD bleed. - [The Cord-Cutting Cliff Stalled in Q1 2026. The Consensus Hasn't Caught Up.](https://thestateofstreaming.com/devices-distribution/2026/04/cord-cutting-pause-2026-thesis-rewrite/) — 2026-04-27 · Devices & Distribution Q3 2025 was the first pay-TV net add since 2017, and Comcast and Charter just narrowed Q1 video losses — but the consensus is still working off Q1 2025's record vMVPD bleed. - [V Set to Overtake LG webOS in Europe, Omdia Forecasts](https://thestateofstreaming.com/devices-distribution/2026/04/hisense-vidaa-overtakes-lg-webos-europe-2026-2/) — 2026-04-27 · Devices & Distribution Hisense's renamed smart-TV OS is on pace to pass webOS in European shipments — and the ad-supply path that comes with it routes through Nexxen, Trade Desk, and Teads, not LG. - [V Set to Overtake LG webOS in Europe, Omdia Forecasts](https://thestateofstreaming.com/devices-distribution/2026/04/hisense-vidaa-overtakes-lg-webos-europe-2026/) — 2026-04-27 · Devices & Distribution Hisense's renamed smart-TV OS is on pace to pass webOS in European shipments — and the ad-supply path that comes with it routes through Nexxen, Trade Desk, and Teads, not LG. - ['Independent' Has Stopped Meaning Anything Buyers Can Audit](https://thestateofstreaming.com/opinion/2026/04/independent-adtech-stack-walled-garden-thesis-2/) — 2026-04-27 · Opinion Four 2026 ad-tech consolidations packaged themselves as the open-internet alternative to Amazon. By their own definitions, every one is now a smaller walled garden — and buyers should treat them that way. ## Directory - [Companies](https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/) — Every material platform, ad-tech vendor, measurement firm, agency, device maker, studio, and data vendor in the CTV and streaming industry. - [People](https://thestateofstreaming.com/people/) — Executives, analysts, investors, and tracked voices shaping streaming and advertising. - [Products](https://thestateofstreaming.com/products/) — Specific streaming services and ad platforms — from Prime Video to Nielsen ONE to Kokai. - [Technology](https://thestateofstreaming.com/tech/) — The category maps and the named products inside them — measurement, programmatic, identity, ACR, data clean rooms, FAST, AI creative tools, DSPs, SSPs, and more. ## Machine-readable Every page on this site has a Markdown alternate at the same URL with `.md` appended. Examples: https://thestateofstreaming.com/about.md, https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech.md, or any article URL with `.md` appended. - Index: https://thestateofstreaming.com/llms.txt - Full archive: https://thestateofstreaming.com/llms-full.txt - Sitemap: https://thestateofstreaming.com/sitemap-index.xml - News sitemap (48h): https://thestateofstreaming.com/sitemap-news.xml - RSS: https://thestateofstreaming.com/rss.xml