Should a Small Business Advertise on Streaming TV?
GSL Media Insights — Issue #3
Somebody reaches out — a rep, an ad, a cold email — with a pitch to get your business on streaming TV. Hulu, Peacock, Tubi, whatever your customers actually watch.
Your first reaction is probably skepticism. Television advertising sounds like something for car dealerships and law firms with seven-figure budgets, not a business deciding between a $1,000 and a $2,000 monthly ad spend.
That reaction used to be correct. It isn't anymore, and that's worth understanding before you dismiss the idea — or before you say yes to the wrong pitch.
What Is Streaming TV Advertising? (CTV vs. OTT vs. Traditional TV)
"Streaming TV advertising" (sometimes called CTV, for connected TV, or OTT, for over-the-top) means ads that run inside streaming apps and platforms — the ones playing on an actual television screen, not a phone or laptop.
The distinction that matters for a small business is how it's bought. Traditional TV — broadcast or cable — is sold in blocks: you buy a time slot on a channel and hope the right people are watching. Streaming TV is sold more like digital advertising: you can target by geography, sometimes down to a ZIP code or a radius around your business, and you pay based on how many times your ad actually plays.
That's the shift that opened the door for local businesses. It used to be genuinely true that TV was out of reach for anyone without a big budget and an ad agency. The buying mechanics have changed enough that the entry point is now much lower — though, as with anything low-barrier-to-entry, that also means a lot of platforms competing for your business with very different pricing, minimums, and quality of inventory behind the pitch.
The bigger question isn't really "can I afford TV now." It's "are my customers actually watching this."
How Many People Are Actually Watching Streaming TV Now?
That question has a real answer, and it comes from Nielsen, the company that sets the industry's actual measurement standard for TV viewing — not a company selling ad space.
According to Nielsen's Gauge report, streaming captured 48.6% of all television watch-time in the U.S. in May 2026 — the largest share of any category, ahead of cable and ahead of broadcast individually, and ahead of the two combined. Streaming first took that structural majority in mid-2025 and has held it since, with occasional exceptions during major live events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics, when broadcast temporarily spikes back up.
In plain terms: for most weeks of the year, if your customer is watching something on their television, there's now a better-than-even chance it's a streaming app rather than a cable channel or a network broadcast. That wasn't true five years ago. It's the reason this pitch is landing in more small-business inboxes than it used to — the audience genuinely moved.
What I can't hand you with the same confidence is a specific cost benchmark. I looked, and the CPM figures floating around online range anywhere from $5 to $65 depending on the source — and nearly every source quoting a number is a platform trying to sell you that exact product. That's not a knock on streaming TV; it's a reason to treat any "typical CPM" claim online, including ones I could have put in this section, with the same skepticism you'd apply to a stranger telling you what a used car is worth.
Is Streaming TV Advertising Worth It for a Small Business?
I wouldn't decide this based on the medium. I'd decide it based on budget floor and what I'm actually being sold.
Is Your Budget Under Roughly $500 a Month?
If so, I'd hold off on streaming TV entirely and make sure the free stuff — an accurate, fully built Google Business Profile — is handled first. That's not a stall tactic; it's sequencing. Paid awareness on top of a business that's still hard to find online is spending money to send people to a dead end.
Do You Have $1,000–$2,500+ a Month and 90 Days to Commit?
If so, I'd start taking calls — but I'd ask three specific questions of anyone pitching me, and I wouldn't accept vague answers.
What Should You Ask Before You Buy?
What's the actual CPM, and what does it include? Get the real number in writing, not an industry range. Ask whether it includes ad-serving and platform fees or just media cost.
How granular is the geographic targeting? ZIP code and radius targeting exist on legitimate platforms. If a rep can't explain how they're limiting your ad to people near your actual business, that's a real gap.
What can I measure afterward? Streaming TV is primarily a reach and credibility play, not a click-and-buy channel — that's fine, but you should still be able to see delivery numbers, not just a promise that the ad ran. (See Issue #2 for why the reporting itself deserves scrutiny.)
Streaming TV earning a legitimate place in a small-business budget is a real, recent shift — not hype. But "real shift" and "good deal from this particular rep" are two different questions, and only one of them Nielsen can answer for you.
How GSL Media Approaches Streaming TV Advertising
GSL Media buys streaming TV / CTV inventory with geographic targeting built around Columbus and Central Ohio specifically, and provides real delivery reporting rather than a promise that the ad ran. If you're evaluating a streaming TV pitch and want a second read on the numbers, that's what the Streaming TV Advertising → page covers.
Bottom Line
Your customers probably are watching streaming TV — Nielsen's data backs that up. Whether a specific streaming ad buy is worth it depends on your budget floor and the specifics of the deal in front of you, not on the format itself.
If this was useful, forward it to a business owner who just got a streaming TV pitch and isn't sure what to make of it.
Sources: Nielsen, The Gauge monthly report, May 2026 (nielsen.com/news-center).