The streaming television business, which spent the better part of a decade fragmenting into ever-smaller pieces, has apparently decided that reassembly is in order.
The Walt Disney Company plans to fold Hulu into Disney+ by year's end, while Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are awaiting regulatory approval to combine Paramount+ and Max into a single service — moves that would reduce the number of major streaming destinations and, in theory, simplify the lives of advertisers who have spent recent years trying to reach the same viewer across a dozen different applications.
Whether this simplification is entirely welcome remains an open question. Harry Browne, a vice president at the performance marketing agency Tinuiti, suggested that consolidation would make audience targeting less of an archaeological exercise. "There's hope that if we consolidate platforms, that exercise becomes easier," Mr. Browne said.
Brian Albert, a managing director at YouTube, offered a more cautious view. "The most immediate effect on viewers will be going from 'too many apps' to 'the mega bundle,' essentially creating a landscape that looks like the old cable TV model," Mr. Albert wrote in an email. (One imagines the cable companies nodding knowingly from their corner of the industry, where they have been sitting quietly for some time.)
According to survey data from Digiday, YouTube continues to command the largest share of streaming advertising budgets for the fourth consecutive year, with half of respondents reporting it consumed the greatest portion of their 2025 spending. Amazon's Prime Video with ads followed at 18 percent, and Hulu at 8 percent — though Hulu's standalone days are numbered.
Measurement remains the industry's persistent headache, with marketers citing it as a top concern alongside media costs and limited budgets. The pending mergers may help, as combined platforms would presumably share data more freely within their own walls. Mr. Browne noted that clean-room solutions and conversion APIs have improved matters, allowing advertisers to trace the journey from an evening ad view to a morning purchase.
As for artificial intelligence, 82 percent of surveyed marketers said they are not using it in streaming campaigns — a sharp contrast to social media, where adoption has been far brisker. Mr. Albert attributed the gap to television's broadcast origins, which were not built on the data-intensive foundation that made social platforms natural homes for algorithmic tools.
"CTV is the type of creative that advertisers are most precious about," Mr. Browne observed. "They have the most pride in what they put on the biggest screen in the house."
The biggest screen, it seems, still commands a certain reverence — even as the services that fill it continue to merge, bundle, and otherwise rearrange the furniture.
Original story published in Digiday: "Digiday+ Research: The marketers' 2026 guide to a shifting CTV landscape, including YouTube, Peacock and Roku"