Streaming TV Took Over, Did You Notice?

Ashley Molinari
Jun 30
3 min read

📺 Streaming Isn’t Niche Anymore, It Is TV

The way Americans watch television has officially changed.

In a historic first, streaming has overtaken both broadcast and cable combined in total TV viewership. According to Nielsen’s latest “The Gauge” report, streaming accounted for 44.8% of total viewing in May 2025, while broadcast and cable together made up just 44.2%. The old way of TV viewership has been dethroned. Viewers are now firmly in the driver’s seat, choosing what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, and on which device.

This isn’t a small shift. It’s a tidal wave, and your campaign needs to be riding it.

💡 What This Means for Campaigns

Voters are no longer sitting down for appointment television. They're streaming news while cooking dinner, catching live political content during daily commutes on their mobile phones, or watching ad-supported shows through Roku or Tubi in the evenings.

This changes everything.

If your campaign is focused only on traditional TV, you’re missing the fastest growing and now dominant audience channel. In fact:

Ad-supported streaming TV now accounts for more than half of all streaming time, with viewers increasingly embracing free, ad-supported platforms over paid, ad-free options.
Free Ad‑Supported CTV platforms like Pluto TV, Roku Channel, and Tubi now combine to account for 5.7% of all TV viewership, more than any individual broadcast network.
CTV ad inventory continues to expand, with platforms like Hulu, Peacock, and Sling TV offering diverse opportunities to target key audiences in the political landscape.

Campaigns that ignore this reality are simply invisible to a growing majority of the electorate.

✅ Why CTV & Streaming Work So Well for Political Advertising

At RepublicanAds.com, we help campaigns turn this massive media shift into meaningful voter engagement. Here’s why streaming is a game-changer for political outreach:

🎯 Precision Targeting

Unlike traditional TV, where ads are blasted to everyone watching a specific channel at a specific time, streaming lets you zero in on your target audience. Want to reach women over 50 in suburban zip codes who care about taxes? Done. Need to hit persuadable swing voters in a key district with a high Voter Propensity Index? No problem. Streaming gives you that control.

📊 Real-Time Metrics

With CTV and digital streaming, you don’t have to guess if your ads are working. You’ll know how many people saw your ad, how many watched the whole thing, and how many times it ran. Our platform’s transparent reporting dashboard offers full-funnel visibility for a medium that used to be a black box.

💰 Smarter Budgeting

Streaming ads are often more cost-effective than broadcast TV, with CPMs that allow for scalable reach without wasting campaign dollars on viewers outside your target audience. And with flexible creative options from 15s to 60s, you don’t need a Super Bowl budget to make an impact on voters.

📺 Living-Room Quality, Mobile Speed

CTV delivers the best of both worlds, the big-screen attention span of television with the targeting and speed of digital. Your campaign ads don’t just show up, they show up where people are paying attention.

🚀 What RepublicanAds.com Brings to the Table

We make it simple to turn this massive media shift into campaign momentum.

FREE Media Planning: Our in-platform FREE media planning tool helps you build a smart CTV plan aligned with your audience, geography, budget, and goals.
Premium Inventory Access: We work with top-tier streaming platforms like Roku, Hulu, Pluto TV, Tubi, and others to get your ads in front of real viewers, not bots or low-quality traffic.
Custom Audience Matching: Through our partnership with industry-leading data providers like i360, we match your ads to the voters who matter most, based on real voter file data, behavioral attributes, and political modeling.
Your Ad, Your Way: Our self-serve platform lets you deploy video ads on CTV without waiting on a media buyer. Campaigns move fast, we help you move faster.
Hands-On Management & Reporting: From launch to optimization, we manage your campaign with full transparency and deliver performance reports you can actually use.

📣 The Bottom Line

Streaming isn’t a trend, it’s the new default.

Viewers have already made the shift. The question is, has your campaign? If you’re still spending the bulk of your media budget on cable buys and ignoring streaming channels, you’re missing where your voters are.

Streaming isn’t niche anymore—it is TV. To reach voters, your message needs to be where they’re watching: on CTV and streaming platforms. RepublicanAds.com helps campaigns shift opinion, mobilize supporters, and deliver measurable results. Start reaching your voters today where they’re streaming TV.

Want to use this award-winning technology in your campaign? It’s FREE to get started!