Why Programmatic Is Finally Bridging Streaming and Linear

The media world has spent years predicting the moment when streaming would rival linear TV. In 2024, streaming reached a major milestone, accounting for 40.3% of total U.S. TV usage, narrowing the gap with linear. But the real story isn’t about replacement. It’s about convergence.

For advertisers, the tipping point isn’t just the rise of streaming, it’s the ability to buy programmatically across both linear and streaming environments. That shift isn’t just technical; it’s transformational. It means more reach, less waste, and a path toward true omnichannel planning. The convergence of linear and streaming isn’t a theory anymore. It’s measurable, scalable, and finally here—a seismic shift with real staying power.

Even legacy hits are experiencing their own hybrid moment. The CBS series Young Sheldon racked up six billion minutes of viewing time in May 2024 alone, split almost evenly between streaming and linear platforms. It’s a perfect snapshot of the media environment advertisers are now working within: not either/or, but both. In other words, we’re past the early days; this is the new media mix.

Here’s a deeper look at what’s driving this shift, and how innovations in ad buying and advanced TV are giving brands the best of both worlds.

The Industry Shift: From Parallel Tracks to a Unified Road

This shift has been accelerated in part by long-standing frustrations on both the publisher and buyer sides, predominantly driven by consumer behavior. Advertisers have needed to follow parallel paths between the broad reach of linear and the precision of CTV, managing two separate buys across systems that have historically operated in silos, with incompatible metrics and separate workflows. For brands chasing unified reach, the result has often been more friction than payoff.

• Fragmented Reach: The U.S. market contains more than 32,000 linear channels and nearly 90 streaming sources, each requiring separate media plans.
• Blind Spots in Performance Metrics: While CTV offers digital-level precision, linear still leans on broad demographic panels, making it difficult to view campaign performance metrics in one place. Nearly 57% of marketers say inconsistent measurement is a top challenge in video advertising, according to the IAB. 
• Legacy Tech Hurdles: Most cable and satellite infrastructure wasn’t designed for real-time bidding or device-level targeting. That’s finally starting to course correct. For example, Charter Communications’ rollout of Xumo Stream Boxes represents a major hardware upgrade, enabling IP address reach and programmatic capabilities, helping bridge the gap between linear and streaming.

From Dish Connected™ to Converged Inventory: Scaling the New Era in TV Advertising

What began as Dish Connected™—a first-to-market solution for enabling real-time ad insertion into live programming on set-top boxes—has evolved into a foundational element of the converged TV landscape. While the innovation led the market early on, the real value today lies in what it enables: unified, IP-enabled inventory that spans both linear and streaming environments.

Millions of households that were once out of programmatic reach are now accessible with the same tools, targeting, and workflows used across CTV. For advertisers, this unlocks real scale without compromising precision. It’s not just about expanding reach, it’s about doing so through a single platform, with consistent measurement and addressability across all screens.

With Magnite’s integration, marketers and agencies can:

• Reach 31M+ households that were previously outside programmatic buying
• Buy via Magnite’s SSP using the same DSPs, targeting, and workflows
• Reduce the need for workarounds tied to legacy infrastructure or siloed linear buys

It’s also a sign of the times. Cable operators are fast-tracking the sunset of legacy Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) video systems to make way for more IP-first infrastructures. That shift in the wind signals a new chapter where all TV—no matter how it’s delivered—is addressable, measurable, and transacted programmatically.

Magnite’s Role: Turning Innovation Into Activation

Magnite plays a critical role in this transformation. As the exclusive first SSP for DISH Media’s addressable inventory, it’s DISH Media and Magnite that are turning innovation into activation. With transparent bidstream signals and direct buyer access, it’s not just about making the supply available—it’s about making it useful. That’s a differentiator in a space still weighed down by alphabet soup and guesswork. Inventory is made accessible via a single platform, lessening the need for workarounds or multiple buying lanes.

As Andrew Tint, general manager, programmatic at DISH Media, explains: “We’re glad that Magnite partnered with us early on to become the exclusive first SSP for DISH Media’s addressable inventory. With DISH Media’s converged inventory now made programmatic, it opened up premium inventory in previously unreachable households, without requiring buyers to change their DSP strategies or workflows. It’s a powerful example of how convergence can deliver both scale and simplicity. This isn’t just a proof of concept—it’s a mandate for where the industry is headed.”

The Convergence Is Now

TV is evolving not by replacement, but by integration. Magnite’s infrastructure and premium media partnerships allow for true omnichannel planning. Programmatic buyers can now act with the same agility across CTV, traditional TV, and everything in between.

Programmatic is no longer the future of TV — it’s the present. And with Magnite’s full stack technology suite, it now covers all homes. For programmatic advertisers, this is the moment to meet. Not a full replacement of linear with streaming, but the ability to finally plan, buy, and measure across both.