DRMetrix – 2025 Projections for Performance Based Television Industry (14 week study)

Understanding 2025 TV Projections for Advertiser Types — 14-Week Update

Introduction 

This study aims to track year-over-year (YoY) performance and project full-year 2025 airings across four key direct response advertiser types: Short Form Products, Lead Generation, Brand/DR, and Long Form (28.5m). Building upon our prior research based on 4-week and 10-week actuals, this update incorporates 14 weeks of data, offering more reliable full-year projections and further insight into market dynamics.

The soft upfront market we identified in our 10-week study is becoming more evident in 2025. We are seeing a continued increase in scatter market inventory, particularly in Q1, allowing performance-driven advertisers to expand their presence in linear TV. The data reflects growing stability for most advertiser types, with some notable trend reversals from our earlier studies.


Methodology

  • We analyzed 14-week and full-year airings data from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2023, and 2024.
  • We excluded pandemic-disrupted years 2021 and 2022 from our standard deviation calculations.
  • For each advertiser type, we applied the average historical 14-week-to-full-year ratio to 2025’s 14-week actuals to project full-year airings.
  • We calculated standard deviations based on these historical years.

While short-form and Brand/DR standard deviations have increased slightly, this reflects the expected variability of Q1-driven performance segments. Overall, stability remains acceptable across categories.



Key Observations and Market Implications

The 14-week dataset offers a clearer view of how early-year market softness is affecting performance-based television advertising:

  • Short Form Products: Initially projected to decline, short form is now showing modest growth. This shift appears to be a direct result of increased scatter availability as traditional brand advertisers scale back.
  • Lead Generation: Growth has slowed slightly from the 10-week projection, but remains positive at +1.77% YoY, confirming strong Q1 participation in linear DR media.
  • Brand/DR: The most consistent category, holding strong at +12.78% projected growth. This segment continues to benefit from hybrid measurement models and expanding use of DPI units.
  • Long Form (28.5m): This segment continues to experience the most headwinds.  Increasing consumer preference for streaming and other entertainment options is reducing the time spent watching long-form television content.

Conclusion With 14 weeks of 2025 actuals now in, we are seeing clearer evidence that a soft traditional market is expanding opportunities for DR advertisers, especially in the traditional direct response categories of short-form product and lead generation which are benefiting from improved access to linear inventory.

We will continue monitoring performance in Q2 to determine whether these trends hold or shift as the year progresses.

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9th Annual AdSphere™ Award Winners Announced

9th Annual AdSphere™ Awards

 Recognize Top Direct-to-Consumer Advertisers in 2024

AbbVie, Progressive, St. Jude Children’s Hospital, E. Mishan & Sons, Great Healthworks, SharkNinja, and LifeLock by Norton among those taking top honors.

SAN DIEGO- (March 17, 2025) – Direct-to-consumer advertisers spent over 21.4 billion on national cable and broadcast networks in 2024 according to DRMetrix, an iSpot company.  To celebrate the industry’s accomplishments, the AdSphere™ Awards will honor the direct-to-consumer industry’s top advertisers and brands.

Awards will be presented to the winners at PDMI EAST 2025, where the leaders in Performance-Driven Marketing will come together in Miami Beach, Florida from April 7-9, 2025.  The AdSphere™ Awards is the first awards program to be inclusive of the entire direct-to-consumer industry with advertisers such as T-Mobile, Columbia Pictures, Chime, Ro, Wayfair.com, University of Phoenix, Sleep Number, The Farmer’s Dog, Trivago, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and many others being honored.

“The AdSphere awards recognize best-of-class advertisers and brands across four industry classifications including brand/direct, lead generation, short-form products, and 28.5-minute infomercials,” said Joseph Gray, founder of the AdSphere Awards and DRMetrix, an iSpot.tv company.  “Direct-to-consumer campaigns achieving this level of scale demonstrate consumer popularity and best-in-class creative and media execution.  The AdSphere Awards are the most inclusive award program for the entire direct-to-consumer industry recognizing over 60 honorees including all of our best-of-category award recipients.”

AdSphere monitors a universe of 160+ national networks on a 24/7/365 basis.  In just over nine years, AdSphere has identified over 17,000 direct-to-consumer brands.  In addition to detecting over 900,000 infomercial (28.5 minute) airings, AdSphere has detected over 170 million spots of varying creative lengths up to five minutes in duration.  The awards recognize top brands across a wide range of industry categories representing all facets of the industry.  AdSphere segments campaigns across over 190 major categories and sub-categories. The complete list of AdSphere Award winners is online at www.drmetrix.com/adsphere-awards.html.

About DRMetrix

DRMetrix, an iSpot.tv company, monitors over 160 national TV networks 24/7/365, tracking direct-to-consumer ads using all creative lengths including spot, 5-min, and long-form which include web addresses, mobile app response, SMS, or toll free numbers.  For more information, please visit www.drmetrix.com.

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