Converged TV: What It Means
Convergent TV is a unified approach to planning, buying, and measuring TV ad campaigns across linear TV (broadcast and cable), CTV (Connected TV), and OTT (Over-the-Top) streaming services. Rather than treating these channels separately with different budgets and teams, convergent TV (sometimes called converged TV) manages them as one integrated strategy.
How It Works
Most brands buy linear TV and streaming ads separately through different teams and platforms. This siloes the data and makes optimization across channels nearly impossible.
Convergent TV breaks down those silos. You need unified planning tools that show what your audience watches across all channels, plus a single buying platform with unified measurement across linear, CTV, and OTT.
With the right tools, you can run scenarios and get recommendations on how to split your budget across channels. You can see incremental lift from a convergent TV approach versus buying linear-only or streaming-only.
Benefits
Extended reach. Combining linear (traditional) TV's reach with CTV/OTT's precision targeting lets you engage broader and more diverse audiences.
Manage duplication and frequency. With a unified approach, you maximize unduplicated reach across linear and CTV while controlling frequency. You can identify parts of your strategic audience unexposed to your linear ads and reach them on streaming instead.
Unified measurement. Fragmented data leads to ineffective spending. When you see viewing habits across linear and Connected TV together, you make better decisions, optimize your budget, and improve your reach.
Optimize budget distribution. Determining how to split budget between linear advertising and CTV advertising is one of the most important decisions for a successful convergent TV campaign. You need tools that show you what your audience watches and recommend the optimal split for your specific goals.
Execution Considerations
Synchronizing execution across linear and streamings minimizes audience duplication. Well-executed cross-channel campaigns can deliver less than 10% duplication even though 55% of households watch both channels. This requires a comprehensive backend platform for buying non-preemptible linear spots and CTV impressions together, with direct sourcing from premium publishers.
Many TV buyers allocate budgets in silos because traditional TV and digital professionals often work separately. By unifying measurement and using one team for both linear and CTV/OTT activations, advertisers can adjust budgets mid-campaign when one channel outperforms the other. The key is real-time visibility into metrics across both platforms, not separate reports from each publisher.
Read more here: https://www.simulmedia.com/blog/demystifying-the-differences-between-linear-tv-and-ctv