Ad attention varies threefold across streaming apps, according to TVision’s State of Streaming 2026 research, which found that viewer attention to advertising ranged from 77 per cent on one connected TV app to just 25 per cent on another.
The gap suggests that having a spot playing on the big screen is no guarantee anyone is watching it. The findings challenge assumptions about where viewers actually pay attention across streaming and linear television.
The research lands as streaming approaches half of all television viewing. Nielsen’s July 2026 data put streaming at 49 per cent of TV time, with YouTube alone reaching a record 14.2 per cent of viewing.
TVision, now part of Viant, built the report on one of the largest streaming attention panels in the world. Its headline attention-gap finding: people watch more than four hours of video a day, but only pay attention to advertising for about nine minutes of it — a figure that is shrinking every year.
The report also notes contrasts elsewhere. Small YouTube channels hold attention better than huge ones — 48 per cent against 41 per cent — while large channels are watched in groups far more often, making the two types of inventory useful to advertisers in different ways. Even at the FIFA World Cup 2026, the biggest audiences were not the most engaged: the two USA men’s matches drew the largest crowds but ranked near the bottom for attention.
For media buyers, the message is that reach and attention are different currencies. According to reports, the findings are likely to sharpen scrutiny of how streaming inventory is valued and sold — and of whether planners are buying audiences, or merely the opportunity to be ignored.
