Premium TV Is Opening Up to More Advertisers. Can the Industry Keep Up?

A Q&A with David Shaw, Head of Global Expansion at Universal Ads 

By R. Larsson, Advertising Week

The barriers that once kept smaller advertisers out of premium television are coming down, as connected TV, automation and AI make the medium more accessible, measurable and easier to buy. But as traditional broadcast and digital video converge, challenges around fragmented markets, inconsistent measurement and interoperability remain. In this AW360 Q&A, David Shaw, Head of Global Expansion at Universal Ads, explores how technology is reshaping the TV advertising landscape, why premium content remains a powerful differentiator and what needs to happen next to unlock the full potential of programmatic television across Europe.

Q: Why is now the right time for more advertisers to access premium TV, and what’s driving that shift?

TV advertising has traditionally been perceived as a channel reserved for larger brands with complex media setups. This was likely based on an assumption that running a campaign required huge minimum budgets with protracted negotiations, which could have deterred smaller businesses, who believed they would have to take on all of this work alone and that it was out of reach for many of them.

In truth, a platform can now absorb much of that effort on the advertiser’s behalf. A growing brand can set a budget, choose an audience, and go live across premium inventory in the time it once took to arrange a first meeting. Platforms like Universal Ads bring Channel 4, ITV, and Sky together in one place, so a single campaign reaches all three without three separate buys. 

Thinkbox data shows that close to 1,000 advertisers used television for the first time in 2025. Access is widening, and the brands walking through the door are smaller and more varied than the ones television has traditionally served.

Q: Has CTV imported the weaknesses of digital advertising, or is it developing along lines that suit television?

CTV borrows the parts of digital that advertisers value most. Addressability, automation, and outcome measurement now sit within the kind of premium environment television has always provided. 

The viewing experience is the key to this. People watch CTV in a relaxed, full-attention setting, surrounded by high-quality content, and this combination tends to earn more engagement than the open web. Frequency management and ad load have also improved a great deal over recent years. Viewers get a better experience as a result, and advertisers see the benefit in their outcomes. 

The goal for CTV is to make television smarter through better data and technology, while keeping everything that gave the medium its value in the first place.

Q: Is measurement keeping up with the pace of change?

Measurement is improving, but there is still real work to do on transparency and interoperability. Consistency is also important; advertisers want one clear view of how a campaign performs, whether the impression landed on linear, on streaming or in digital video. Cross-platform solutions are bringing that closer. The progress depends on all parties pulling in the same direction, so partnerships between buyers and sellers, as well as measurement providers, will determine how quickly things move. 

The technology is advancing too. Shoppable formats and pause ads give advertisers a clearer line between an impression and what happened next. Co-viewing measurement is doing useful work as well, joining the impression-based habits of digital with the reach metrics that television has relied on for decades.

Q: Where is AI actually making a difference in TV advertising today?

AI earns its place today by taking friction out of the daily work. It handles a lot of the planning, as well as the actual campaign activation and in-flight optimisation, giving teams more room to think about strategy and results. 

Advertisers are showing real interest in agentic buying, where automated tools help them work across a media market that has grown more fragmented every year. Creative is opening up as well, since AI lets a brand of almost any size produce and adapt assets for television and streaming without the costs that used to be prohibitive. AI is driving campaign creation and execution at greater speed, offering better efficiency and effectiveness than ever before.

Q: How can advertisers balance scale, performance and quality across today’s video ecosystem?

Advertisers need to stop treating television and digital as competing channels and start evaluating them through a unified lens. The old argument about television versus digital has largely run its course, mostly because audiences settled it themselves. People move between premium programming, creator videos, and free ad-supported streaming without much thought. The constant across all of their viewing is a preference for content they trust. 

This instinct is why creator-led formats are finding their way onto the big screen, coupling the approaches that reshaped social with the standards of broadcast television. The sensible path forward for advertisers is to adapt a single framework that judges every environment on the same terms. 

Attention and audience quality belong in that assessment, with brand suitability weighed alongside them. Television is getting quicker and simpler to buy, and this ease will keep softening the old dividing lines between channels.

Q: What is slowing the growth of programmatic TV across Europe?

Europe is a patchwork that has been shaped for years around individual broadcaster channels. Measurement standards and regulations vary widely from one market to the next, and that variation can hold adoption back. The maturity of technology also differs; many broadcasters are partway through a move away from older, broadcast-first systems toward operations built on automation and data. 

Faster growth will follow as the market agrees more common standards and learns to work as a connected whole. Initiatives that bring broadcasters, streamers and the wider supply chain around a shared set of priorities are the ones worth backing, and they need support from everyone who benefits when the market grows.