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Survey: More Political Ads Likely Coming to Streaming as Voters Leave Linear TV

Survey: More Political Ads Likely Coming to Streaming as Voters Leave Linear TV

Much has been made recently in the U.S. of the perceived growing divide between voters of different parties. According to the newest report from TV viewership measurement company Samba TV and research firm HarrisX, however, there is at least one area in which a majority of Americans agree regardless of party affiliation: Linear TV is a thing of the past.

Samba’s research shows that only 49% of registered voters still use traditional TV and that 25% of those that do are planning to cancel their TV plan within the next six months. That’s a complicating factor for political campaigns, who are used to reaching huge amounts of voters at the same time with ads via linear TV.

The problem for campaigns as the Midterm Elections approach is that not only are they reaching a smaller segment of the audience, but they’re tending to reach the same small segment over and over again. Samba’s analysis found that 90% of the ads run on TV in a particular 2020 senate race in Arizona reached the same 55% of Arizona households.

“With so many elections now being determined by the slimmest of margins,” Samba co-founder and CEO Ashwin Navin said, “campaigns need to dramatically rethink how they reach voters in the closing weeks to ensure they are not just saturating the same shrinking number of households with ads while leaving the vast majority of the electorate under-reached.”

The margins get even slimmer among independent voters, who have always been the key voting block that candidates need to win over. Only 42% of independents nationwide watch traditional TV, and that number drops to 39% in so-called “battleground” states that are more likely to see close elections, heated campaigns, and a large number of ads.

All these numbers lead to one inescapable conclusion: More political ads are coming to streaming in the near future.

Samba’s research found that 80% of voters both in battleground states and around the country in general use a streaming service. Millennial and Gen Z voters are more than twice as likely to access content via streaming than through traditional TV, and that gap widens even further in the battleground states.

That means that more political ads will be coming to streaming services, but some platforms have already addressed this rush. In July, Hulu was criticized by a New York congressional candidate for rejecting ads that included issues deemed to be “sensitive,” and then later in the month began allowing issue-based ads in line with how Disney’s cable channels approach political commercials.

On the company’s more family-friendly platform, Disney+ will not air ads for political campaigns or action committees — as well as alcohol brands or competing networks, streaming services, or studios.

While campaigns will look to move to streaming to get their message out, they will also undoubtedly turn to social media, which sees large amounts of traffic from younger voters. Facebook remains the most-used platform nationally, but TikTok and YouTube are more popular with Gen Z voters. Young Democratic voters are more likely to use TikTok, with 37% of Democratic respondents saying they used it weekly versus 27% of Republicans.


David covers the biggest news stories, live events, premieres, and informational pieces for The Streamable. Before joining TS, he wrote extensively for Screen Rant and has years of experience writing about the entertainment and streaming industries. He's a Broncos fan, streams on his Toshiba Fire TV, and his favorites include "Andor," "Rings of Power," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

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