TV Ad Technology Vendor Profile: TiVo -- According to Forrester Research, TiVo's digital video recorders are popular, in part because they allow consumers to skip commercials easily. But even as its users gnaw away at television's traditional business model, TiVo offers advertisers an alternative. Behind its network of consumer devices, TiVo has deployed an advertising system that is based on voluntary viewing of long-form video advertisements. Today, the system has a limited reach of approximately 3 million subscribers and, unlike the vendors of most other ad systems, TiVo sells its own inventory. Both the reach and the sales model for these ads are likely to change in light of TiVo's recently announced deal with Comcast.
The global streaming industry has spent the better part of a decade chasing subscriber counts as the primary metric of success. That era is now formally over. New market data from Omdia confirms that the industry has crossed a decisive threshold; one that shifts the competitive playing field from growth-at-all-costs to monetization discipline. For senior executives navigating media, advertising, and technology strategy, the implications extend well beyond entertainment. A Historic Revenue Crossover Online video revenue increased 13.5 percent to $176 billion in 2025, while pay-TV revenue declined 4 percent to $170 billion; marking the first time in the industry's history that streaming has surpassed legacy pay-TV in revenue terms. This is not a rounding error or a statistical artifact; it represents the culmination of more than a decade of structural disruption to the traditional broadcast and cable TV model. Global subscriptions to online video services reached 2.24 billion by the ...