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By 2026, streaming has taken a confident lead. Viewers spend more time on Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and similar platforms than on cable or broadcast TV, and for many households this has become the normal way to watch anything. What used to be a relatively simple market has grown into a broad mix of subscription services, ad-supported models, and FAST channels — each trying to find its place in people’s daily viewing.
It makes you wonder: will streaming end traditional television? Broadcasters are responding in different ways. Disney is bringing Disney+ and Hulu under one roof. Warner Bros. Discovery continues to expand Max with a wider range of content. Netflix and Amazon rely on exclusive deals with established creators to keep their libraries recognizable and competitive. The tactics differ, but the idea is the same: stay close to viewers who now expect everything to be available online, whenever they want it.
Even as streaming rises, traditional TV is far from disappearing. In May 2025, streaming platforms accounted for 44.8 % of total viewing1, slightly more than cable and broadcast combined. While linear TV audiences have declined, this shift has pushed broadcasters to rethink their strategies. Networks are embracing digital tools, experimenting with hybrid models, and adjusting programming to stay relevant in a world where viewers increasingly expect content on-demand.
The future of TV is digital, or rather, digitized. Fueled by the pressing competition from digital video platforms, this transformation touches every cornerstone of the TV business, from content production and delivery to relationships with advertisers. In the ongoing battle of streaming services vs traditional TV, broadcasters are rethinking how to stay relevant and competitive. Below, we go over the three major pan-industrial trends that are set to reinvent traditional TV and fortify its position against OTT incumbents.
Cloud technology is expected to bring more efficiency to TV content production and distribution processes. TV virtualization reveals broadcasters’ decisive move from the traditional hardware-heavy model to completely virtualized environments built in private, public, or hybrid clouds.
Back in 2015, Disney/ABC Television caused a stir by shifting its master‑control room and playout infrastructure to the cloud. Since then, the move to cloud‑based broadcasting has become mainstream among broadcasters responding to OTT competition. The global Cloud TV market, for example, is projected to grow to roughly $6 billion by 2029 and may reach over $12 billion by 20322.
From the broadcasters’ perspective, virtualized operations mean previously unimagined savings and flexibility.
Compared to hardware-intensive infrastructures, virtualization lowers expenditures on physical equipment required for each new channel launch. Instead, the entire process can be moved to virtual machines, which speeds up time-to-market and allows tweaking content on the fly to tailor it to the consumers’ shifting preferences. This is how the TV providers’ operational efficiency can match up to that of major OTT rivals.
From the viewers’ perspective, cloud TV means a more flexible access to premium content in Full HD and 4K UHD, available across connected devices. Virtualization is critical when it comes to the ability to deliver to multiple platforms, from smart TVs to mobile handsets.
Cloud TV transformation also goes hand in hand with the ability to collect and analyze astonishing volumes of viewership data that is almost impossible to measure precisely in the traditional TV setting. Such advanced analytics could offer more visibility into viewing habits to strengthen and personalize broadcasters’ relationships with their audience. Analytics can also help to level up inventory sales through insights into ad performance.
In 2024, NBC Sports Regional Networks started running its graphics and production workflows in the cloud, which made it quicker to update live broadcasts and easier to manage resources from a central hub. Around the same time, Sky Network Television in New Zealand moved several HD channels to a cloud-ready playout system, giving them the ability to stream in UHD and launch new channels faster.
In Europe, Sky Group introduced its MediaMesh cloud platform, automating content processing and delivery across multiple countries. These examples show how broadcasters are using cloud and hybrid systems to work more efficiently and respond more quickly to what viewers want.
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The shift of ad budgets toward digital (now nearly 60% of global media spend3) is pushing traditional TV to rethink how it delivers value to advertisers. Connected TV (CTV) and streaming platforms are proving particularly effective, attracting engaged audiences with premium long-form content.
TV market players are looking to automate the ad buying process and make it more data-driven to be able to segment and target audiences like in digital advertising. This would allow advertisers to reach the right high-value viewers with relevant, dynamic video ads of outstanding quality based on those viewers’ interests and previously watched programs.
While TV ad targeting is still far from reaching digital advertising capabilities, there has been some headway on addressable TV and personalization.
It’s no accident that some of these experiments are taking place on connected TVs, as streaming TV viewers are reported to complete 90-98% of all video ads4. Multiple research sources also agree that connected TV is home to premium long-form content viewership.
In 2017, advanced ad personalization for connected TV viewers was pioneered by Channel 4 on its AVOD platform All4. The broadcaster rolled out an original option for advertisers to address their target consumers by names, using Channel 4’s first-hand data on its 15-million subscriber base. The option was immediately picked up by such brands as 20th Century Fox and Ronseal.
Other experiments with ad targeting are tapping into the potential of addressable TV through cable, satellite, IPTV, and set-top box delivery. Addressable TV allows advertisers to show different ads to different households based on advanced audience segmentation techniques, beyond simple demographic breakdowns like age and gender. This has to do with programmatic buying of linear TV inventory, which results in serving highly targeted ads that are more relevant and engaging to viewers.
Addressable TV has moved from niche experiment to mainstream tool. As of 2025, roughly 69.5 million U.S. households — including traditional cable, satellite, and CTV — can be reached with addressable campaigns, representing about 31.6 million adults, or 13 % of the U.S. adult population. Over half of marketers now consider addressable TV a “must-buy” for their media plans5.
For example, in 2024, Hybe ran a connected TV campaign that used cross-device tracking to deliver ads based on what viewers were watching and which apps they used. This let the brand see directly how people engaged with the ads and even track app installs, showing just how effective personalized TV advertising can be.
A global marketing agency came to Oxagile struggling with fragmented ad platforms and inconsistent reporting across CTV and other channels.
We built a DSP aggregation tool that unified CTV, display, and mobile advertising into one workflow. Through a single interface, the client team was able to:
The outcome: faster execution, less manual effort, and clearer cross-device performance insights.
Contrary to the common opinion that TV networks have to adopt a streaming solution to survive, some broadcasters prefer to be careful about moving into digital streaming. They are driven to diversify their monetization streams — yet without investing into their own full-blown OTT platforms. Luckily, for such tentative adopters there are virtual multichannel video-programming distributors (vMVPDs) who offer safe testing of the digital streaming waters.
Virtual MVPDs, such as YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV and others, have long since moved past the early-adopter phase. As of 2025, these services account for more than 20% of all pay TV subscribers in the U.S. On aggregate, vMVPD subscriptions amount to roughly 20.7 million households, with YouTube TV alone counting about 9.4 million subscribers6.
These platforms aggregate live channels, many from traditional broadcasters, and distribute them via internet-connected devices such as smart TVs, streaming boxes or gaming consoles. Over just a few years, vMVPDs have evolved from a niche alternative into a significant player in the U.S. TV market.
For pay TV providers, partnering with vMVPDs is important because it means raising TV viewership rates by reaching cord-cutters and cord-nevers. So instead of losing viewers, especially millennials, to these emerging video services, broadcasters choose to provide their content as part of the vMVPD package.
The live TV networks that already joined in include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, Cartoon Network, and NBCU, among others. In most cases, their channels are available on vMVPDs through so-called skinny bundles. This term is closely associated with the key value proposition of vMVPDs: to make viewers pay less for the essential bundle of preferred channels instead of subscribing for the entire cable TV package or to individual OTT providers.
In the second half of the 2020s, skinny bundles continue to evolve within the vMVPD ecosystem7. While they do not dominate overall pay TV or OTT consumption, these compact packages are increasingly used to experiment with flexible offerings, personalization, and targeted content, reflecting the broader trend of viewers seeking a more streamlined and customized TV experience.
All in all, vMVPD distribution continues to be a sound strategic move for pay TV networks. It enables traditional broadcasters to reach streaming audiences across multiple connected devices without the need to build and maintain their own OTT platforms, while still making their content libraries widely accessible.
For example, Disney/ABC added its main channels, like ABC and ESPN, to Hulu + Live TV as part of skinny bundles. This made it easier for viewers who had moved away from traditional cable to access their favorite channels without Disney having to launch a full OTT service.
Another example is NBCUniversal, which offers key channels such as NBC, Bravo, and USA Network through YouTube TV and Peacock in compact bundles. This approach lets NBCU reach viewers shifting away from traditional pay TV while still keeping long-time audiences engaged, showing how skinny bundles can offer a simpler, more flexible TV experience.
To counteract the fierce competition from OTT, traditional pay TV broadcasters are looking to reinvent their production, distribution, and advertising models. With viewers increasingly asking themselves “Is traditional TV dying?”, the industry is responding with innovation rather than retreat.
Technology is at the core of this major reinvention. Cloud-based virtualization of operational processes, audience segmentation for programmatic TV ad buyers, and vMVPD content distribution all prove that traditional cable TV providers are thinking digital to keep their audiences and advertising revenues.
Over time, such convergence of linear and digital will only be strengthening as traditional cable TV adapts to the changing market conditions brought by streaming. While it’s still too early to measure any tangible impact, it’s likely this approach will be setting up positive dynamics in the operational efficiency, advertising reach, and viewer acquisition of traditional TV market players.
Our experts help broadcasters modernize workflows, build custom streaming solutions, and implement data-driven AdTech, making TV transformation simple and efficient.
1. Streaming Reaches Historic TV Milestone, Eclipses Combined Broadcast and Cable Viewing For First Time — Nielsen
2. Cloud TV Market Size, Share & Segmentation — SNS Inside
3. Dentsu Forecasts 2024 Global Ad Spend To Grow By 4.6% And Defines A New Era Of Brand Investment Metrics — Dentsu
4. CTV (Connected TV) Advertising Statistics — SEO Design Chicago
5. By year’s end, only about a third of US homes will have traditional pay TV — NSCREENMEDIA
6. Research: Addressable TV ads continue to grow — Advanced Television
7. Virtual MVPDs Now Control More Than 20% Of U.S. Pay TV Market — TVNewsCheck
Not exactly. Streaming is growing fast and changing how people watch, but traditional cable TV still plays an important role, especially for live events, news and sports. Traditional TV isn’t disappearing. It’s evolving, finding ways to work alongside streaming services and adopt new tools like addressable ads and on-demand options.
The difference comes down to flexibility and targeting. Streaming services vs traditional TV offers viewers more control over when and what they watch, often with personalized recommendations. Traditional cable TV, on the other hand, still delivers scheduled programming to a wide audience. Today, many broadcasters combine the best of both worlds to keep audiences engaged and advertisers satisfied.
