By Gregor Chalmers, Head of Broadcast, The Kite Factory
I started my career as a graduate TV buyer in the summer of 2010 and throughout my career there has often been talk that linear TV is “dead”. Despite the overwhelming and validated research to demonstrate its effectiveness at driving short-, medium- and long-term results for brands the gradual decline in live viewing was seen as proof of the channels’ demise and reason for brands to pivot into digital and performance channels.
The way in which we watch TV has and will continue to change, but the death of linear has been pronounced too often and too early by those seeking to profit from it. In 2010 the most watched TV show of the year was the final of The X Factor with a viewing figure of 17.2m: in 2025 the most watched TV show is likely to be the finale of The Celebrity Traitors with a total audience of 15.2m. A decline for sure, but hardly terminal, and that’s just one example: big cultural and sporting moments (the 2024 Gavin and Stacey reunion, international football finals, royal events) have all shown the power of linear TV to pull massive audiences in recent years.
But it would be churlish to deny that TV consumption is changing. Yes linear TV can and does still deliver moments of truly mass viewing, it’s just that those moments are becoming fewer and (Traitors aside) most often in sporting environments. This is because as viewers we’ve never had so much choice between high-quality, premium content. Funnily enough the rise of ad tiers within premium streaming services alongside the digification of traditional TV suppliers has also given that same plethora of choice to advertisers.
Keeping pace with this change should be a key priority for agencies going into 2026. It’s why we’ve been refining Seen&Heard, our proprietary tool that helps our planners understand the best splits of budget within AV platforms. Already delivering exceptional results for clients looking to deliver maximum reach across multiple channels we’re now able to optimise towards performance KPIs as well. By blending the two we can best understand how and when to activate across emerging AV channels and not be blinded by the shiniest (and often most expensive) routes and instead make the smart choice.
This concept of choice should be of huge interest to us as agencies and advertisers in 2026. I am sure a lot of you reading this will recognise yourself in this scenario: the end of a long day, sat on the sofa either alone or with a friend or loved one, scrolling for something to watch. Everything looks good, everything looks interesting: before you know it you’ve wasted 15 minutes just finding something to watch. The choice paralysis is real.
This is arguably one of the key reasons why linear TV has and will continue to survive a while yet: the best channels are the ones that curate quality content we want to watch and remove the barrier of indecision. Not only that, at their best they create moments of shared mass engagement: that knowledge that we’re all tuning in as one, either to watch that stunning goal again or delight in Alan Carr trying to pretend he isn’t a Traitor.
But linear TV is evolving: at their end of year Palooza ITV announced plans for Live Addressable+ which brings addressable targeting to their linear channels. Not to be left behind, only a couple of weeks later Channel 4 introduced their own addressable linear targeting routes across Sky and YouView services. Given Sky are already well-established in this space through their AdSmart platform it means all three of the main UK broadcasters allow advertisers to access their linear offering in an addressable format.