From CTV to Total TV: Why Unified Measurement Matters

As television continues to evolve, the way it is planned and measured has not always kept pace. Across Europe, advertisers are navigating a TV landscape where broadcast and streaming increasingly coexist, while planning and measurement models often remain split.

Audiences today move fluidly between live broadcast, on demand services, and connected TV environments, often on the same screen. As a result, treating Linear TV and CTV as separate channels no longer reflects how TV is actually experienced.

A shared European shift in viewing behaviour.

Across major European markets, regulators and measurement bodies point to a similar pattern. Traditional broadcast TV remains important, but a growing share of TV content is now consumed through on demand and connected environments.

In Germany, AGF Videoforschung data highlights the continued strength of Linear TV alongside steady growth in non-linear and digital TV usage. In France, ARCOM reports show a mature hybrid TV environment, where broadcast, replay, and online video consumption increasingly overlap.

The UK provides one of the clearest illustrations of this shift. According to Ofcom’s Media Nations 2025 report, overall broadcast TV viewing continues to decline, while TV content is increasingly accessed through on demand and streaming services.

Together, these markets reflect a broader European reality. TV consumption is no longer defined by a single delivery model, even if planning and measurement structures still are.

Why siloed measurement creates real planning challenges

When Linear TV and CTV are measured in isolation, advertisers are effectively analysing fragments of the same viewing experience. This makes it difficult to understand true reach, manage frequency across environments, or assess how different exposures contribute to overall campaign outcomes.

In a Total TV context, reach is no longer additive across platforms. Frequency cannot be managed effectively without a cross-environment view. Measurement needs to align with how audiences actually move across broadcast and streaming environments.

This challenge is not theoretical. It has practicalimplications for how advertisers plan, budget, and evaluate TV campaigns across Europe.

From channels to comparable measurement

A Total TV approach shifts the focus away from channels and toward comparability. Comparable measurement allows advertisers to evaluate performance consistently across broadcast and connected TV environments, even when delivery mechanisms differ.

This is less about introducing new metrics and more about simplifying decision-making. As TV investment increasingly spans multiple environments, consistency becomes essential for understanding what is working, where incremental reach is delivered, and how frequency is managed across the full campaign.

The Rakuten TV Enterprise perspective

At Rakuten TV Enterprise, we see Total TV not only as a measurement challenge, but as an operational one for advertisers.

Many advertisers are managing TV and CTV budgets that are structured differently, planned by different teams, and measured using different partners. Our role is to help simplify this complexity by working across a variety of measurement approaches and environments, making it easier for advertisers to build a holistic view of their campaigns.

By operating at scale across European markets and TV environments, we help advertisers connect Linear-adjacent and connected TV activity into a more coherent Total TV strategy, aligned with how audiences actually watch TV today.