CTV’s content signal gap: What advertisers need to know from the latest CTV Trends Report

Ad-supported streaming TV continues to grow, giving advertisers more opportunities to reach audiences across a wider range of programming. But while CTV advertising has become increasingly sophisticated, buyers still don’t always have a clear picture of the content behind the impressions they’re purchasing. Basic information about what viewers are watching can be missing, inconsistent, or inaccurate by the time an ad opportunity reaches a buyer.

Our latest CTV Trends Report: Addressing the Content Signal Gap examines the content information available in the CTV bidstream and what the gaps mean for advertisers and publishers.

Streaming audiences are growing, but the opportunity is changing

Daily hours of viewing on ad-supported streaming TV increased 11.5% year over year according to our analysis.

That growth is increasingly coming from more households turning to free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST), while viewing time per household has remained relatively stable.

At the same time, FAST is attracting more premium content, including live sports, as publishers and rights holders look for new ways to reach streaming audiences.

All of this points to a streaming ecosystem that continues to expand and mature, with the focus increasingly shifting from audience growth to maximizing the value of existing viewership.

Advertisers don’t always know what they’re buying 

One of the report’s most significant findings is how little information about streaming content actually makes it into the programmatic CTV bidstream.

Wurl’s analysis found that:

• 89% of ad requests were missing a usable program name.
• 45% were missing a usable channel name.

That means advertisers can purchase an impression without knowing which program a viewer is watching, or even which channel is airing it, making it harder to determine whether a placement aligns with their campaign.

Genre labels aren’t always reliable 

Genre is one of the most familiar ways to categorize television programming. But across CTV, even something as straightforward as identifying a show’s genre can get complicated. During just two hours of prime-time ad requests, Wurl identified more than 3,600 different genre labels.

Some labels described the same type of programming in slightly different ways. A drama, for example, could appear as “drama,” “genre_drama,” or “crime drama,” depending on the supply partner. Others were so broad that they offered little useful information about the content.

Beyond inconsistent labeling, Wurl found that 35% of the inventory analyzed for genre accuracy carried a declared genre that didn’t align with the actual program.

These discrepancies can make it harder for advertisers to identify relevant programming, and highlight the need for more accurate, granular content signals. Wurl and AdExchanger research found that 39% of respondents cited real-time content analysis as the top capability for advancing contextual targeting in CTV, while 29% pointed to more granular content categorization.

More accurate and detailed genre information would give advertisers a better foundation for choosing platforms that align with their campaigns. 

What’s happening on screen matters

Even when genre information is accurate, it doesn’t necessarily capture the context surrounding an ad.

A news program might move from coverage of a serious event to a local weather forecast or an uplifting human-interest story. Each segment creates a different environment for advertising, despite appearing under the same genre label.

More granular content intelligence can help advertisers understand what’s happening immediately before an ad break and make more precise decisions about where their messages appear. There’s also evidence that this level of context can improve performance. Previous research from Wurl and TVision found that ads aligned with the emotional context of a scene received 2.4x more attention. 

Making those signals available across more streaming inventory would give advertisers more opportunities to apply precise contextual targeting.

The future of CTV advertising 

As ad-supported streaming continues to grow, advertisers need more reliable information about the content behind each impression. Wurl’s latest findings highlight where today’s CTV bidstream falls short and how better content signals could help advertisers identify relevant viewing environments.

Wurl is helping address these challenges through its Content Intelligence Platform, which brings advanced contextual signals directly into the programmatic buying process. While the technology to deliver more sophisticated contextual targeting already exists, the challenge now is making that intelligence accessible and actionable at scale. Wurl’s Content Intelligence helps bridge that gap by connecting scene-level insights with premium streaming TV inventory, bypassing the inaccuracies of standard contextual metadata and unlocking more than 140 billion monthly signal-rich CTV impressions – enabling advertisers to make more informed targeting decisions.

Want to learn more? Access Wurl’s latest CTV Trends Report for the full findings on streaming viewership, content metadata gaps, and what they mean for the future of CTV advertising.