The launch of ads on Netflix in 2022 proved something of a watershed moment, turning the most-used SVOD service in the UK into a commercial media environment, and prompting other streaming companies to introduce their own ad-supported models. And over the subsequent four years, tracking of audience behaviour has dispelled the notion that consumers would turn their backs on ad-funded media, instead largely embracing the introduction of cheaper subscription offerings.
The latest report from UK advertising trade body the IPA, Making Sense: The commercial media landscape 2026, makes that case using analysis of the IPA TouchPoints database. According to the research, more than one-third (36 percent) of adults in Britain now use ad-funded commercial SVOD services every week, and that audience is expected to keep growing.
“Personally, we expect this figure to continue rising as ad-supported tiers become a standard feature rather than a step-down option,” the IPA’s Simon Frazier and Molly Bruce predict in the report. “Five years ago the idea of advertising returning to subscription video services felt almost counterintuitive. Today it feels increasingly inevitable.”
Facebook remains dominant
That said, the rise in AVOD subscriptions should be taken in the context of wider consumption habits. Over the last decade, premium video’s share of time spent with curated commercial media has fallen from 46 percent in 2015, to 37 percent in 2026, owing to the rise of social media, music streaming, and other online video.
But looking at individual media properties by their weekly reach, the report notes that two of the top five are still commercial TV channels. However, both ITV and Channel 4 are below YouTube’s reach of 48 percent, as well as Facebook’s persistently high 51 percent. And looking at the figures among younger users (ages 16-34), no broadcasters are present, and TV channels have not featured in the top five since 2021.
Furthermore the decline in linear TV viewing is particularly pronounced among the 16-34 demographic, with commercial live/recorded TV’s share of commercial media time falling from 32 percent in 2015, to just 7 percent in 2026. But social media and other online video’s combined share now stands at 49 percent, which the report takes as evidence of “a healthy, opportunity-rich landscape” for advertisers to reach younger viewers across different video channels.
“We used to often hear that reaching younger audiences through advertising-funded media is becoming impossible, but the evidence suggests otherwise,” Frazier and Bruce write in the report.
Media isolation is on the rise
While that fragmentation across media channels does not necessarily reduce the commercial opportunity, it does mean more media is consumed in isolation. The share of curated commercial media consumption that happens when people are alone has risen from 40 percent in 2015, to 44 percent in 2026, rising to 46 percent among the younger demographic.
Mike Follett, CEO at Lumen, notes in the report that this phenomenon “has great implications” for advertising’s ability to reach multiple audiences through the same media at the same time.
“When I watch TV with my family, I receive two messages: one from the advertiser and one from my co-audience. I know that you know that I know that cats like Felix like Felix cat food,” says Follett. “Solitary media consumption muffles this secondary, public communication. How can I be sure about the value of a signifier if I am the only one to receive the signal? These two tectonic trends – the splintering of attention to advertising across a million little shards, and the shattering of ‘common attention’ – pose important challenges for brand builders. Amongst much consistency, these are changes worthy of the name.”
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