Connected TV advertising could attract significantly larger ad budgets if advertisers had access to better show-level targeting and reporting data, according to a new global study released by Gracenote, the content intelligence business unit of Nielsen. The report highlights how the absence of detailed content-level visibility in the CTV ecosystem continues to slow down advertiser confidence and spending.

According to a Gracenote press release earlier this week, the report titled ‘TV Audiences Have Shifted. Ad Dollars Have Not: The Need for Content Intelligence in the CTV Era’ was released ahead of the upfront season and is based on a survey of 500 media professionals in the United States. The findings reveal that 86 percent of US media planners would move more linear TV advertising budgets to CTV if show-level targeting and reporting capabilities were available.

The study also suggests that the shift could extend beyond traditional television advertising. Around 65 percent of respondents said they would consider moving budgets from programmatic video, while 63 percent indicated they would shift spending from display advertising if CTV offered deeper and more reliable content intelligence.

The report identifies what Gracenote calls the “CTV data gap” — a lack of standardised information around the programming environment where ads are placed. While connected TV platforms already offer strong audience targeting tools, advertisers still struggle to get detailed visibility into the actual content associated with ad impressions. This limitation, the report states, affects everything from campaign planning to measurement and post-campaign reporting.

Ryan Moore, Chief Business Officer at Gracenote, said advertisers are not seeking additional complexity, but rather the same level of transparency they have traditionally received from linear television. He noted that bringing show-level visibility into CTV would help the medium attract larger budgets not only from linear TV but also from the broader digital advertising ecosystem.

To address this challenge, Gracenote is promoting its Content Graph solution, which provides source-validated data around CTV inventory, including information such as genre, rating, language, program metadata and unique content identifiers. The company said the solution helps advertisers improve targeting precision, strengthen brand safety measures and validate campaign performance more effectively.

The report also cited a recent campaign involving beer brand Dos Equis, executed by dentsu X through Index Exchange’s SSP using Gracenote CTV Content Intelligence. The campaign reportedly achieved 100 percent impression delivery within targeted college football content, with 84 percent of impressions appearing during live College Football Playoff games, while maintaining CPMs 7 percent below benchmark levels.

Additional findings from the report indicate that 89 percent of media planners expect more advertising budgets to shift from linear television to CTV over the next 12 to 24 months. The survey also found that all programmatic traders considered show-level transparency important for ensuring inventory quality and brand safety, while 95 percent agreed that the absence of such signals makes it difficult to advocate for increased CTV investment.