Why 2025 Might Have Been The Pivotal Year For Connected TV (CTV).

At this year’s TV of Tomorrow Show in New York, a sharp and candid panel discussion too place under the moderation of renowned industry commentator Colin Dixon from nScreenMedia to debate where Connected TV is today - and where it’s heading.

The session was called 'CTV and TV of Tomorrow: Advertising, Content and the Viewer Experience' and brought together senior leaders from LG Electronics, The Trade Desk, Telly, Stingray and Origin - thereby bringing a diversity of vantage points spanning hardware to content, creative innovation, ad-tech and direct-to-consumer streaming.

That breadth revealed itself quickly -

• David Purdy (Stingray) about the persistent challenge of unsolved audience and “value attribution” when non-traditional CTV formats don’t map cleanly onto legacy agency or media-buying workflows.

• Rob Caruso (The Trade Desk) raised a deeper, structural concern: the fragmented nature of app ecosystems and walled-garden platforms makes unified discovery or recommendation impossible - driving many viewers to social media to find what to watch.

• Mark Lee (LG), shared how balancing monetization with a comfortable living-room user experience remains a constant tension.

• Dallas Lawrence (Telly) spoke to behavioral inertia: many consumers still haven’t internalized what it means to “click a TV ad,” and advertisers often cling to old paradigms (30-second spots) that don’t reflect the CTV medium’s potential.

From Origin’s vantage point, Fred Godfrey (CEO) argued the old “challenges to watch out for” - attribution, fragmentation - are in many ways receding. What remains is a deeper cultural and creative shift which means we need to stop treating ad breaks like relics of 1950s broadcast, and instead rethink how we tell stories, how we engage people, and how we deliver relevance at scale.

Why Now Is Different: Data & Industry Momentum

The timing of this discussion could not be more relevant. Recent industry data shows that more than 80% of U.S. households now have at least one CTV device, and streaming now accounts for roughly 44% of U.S. TV time - mostly on ad-supported platforms.

At the same time, data from multiple 2025 reports suggest that total ad spend is shifting away from linear TV: linear-core ad buys are forecast to drop by 7% in 2025.

Meanwhile, investment in ad-supported streaming and CTV continues to rise, confirming what every member of the panel emphasized: for advertisers, marketers and technologists, CTV is no longer experimental. It’s essential.

Even more promising: the industry’s top players are racing to solve the very problems which were discussed. Smart-TV manufacturer LG recently announced a partnership with ad-tech firm Taboola to bring CTV-originated ads onto the open web - giving advertisers measurable, cross-channel reach, and lowering the friction around attribution and campaign performance.

Service providers are investing heavily in AI-powered metadata and recommendation engines: for instance, a recent collaboration between Bitmovin and ThinkAnalytics aims to make content more discoverable and ads more personalized - opening the door for scene-level targeting, snackable highlights, and new engagement formats.

Short-Form, Interactive, and Creative: What’s Poised to Break Out

During the panel’s quickfire round, the optimism was rooted in reality -

• David Purdy predicted demand for “micro-dramas” or short-form content on big screens that mirrors how people already consume social video. 

• Rob Caruso stressed that great ads done right belong on TV; with more ad dollars flowing into CTV, experiences will only get better over time. 

• Mark Lee pointed to emerging opportunities in commerce and interactive experiences on TV. 

• Dallas Lawrence predicted that eventually “everything you can do on digital, you should be able to do on your TV.” 

• Fred offered his perspective on what he has seen through Origin's recent client campaign strategies and what we believe matters most: the importance of delivering a creative experience, powered by dynamic storytelling capabilities and a human-led strategy that resonates.

This isn’t just guesswork. Recent ad-industry surveys show brands investing in the newer, innovative ad formats - including those synchronized with second-screen behavior like smartphone scrolling while watching TV - are gaining ground. Indeed, many CTV marketers are already testing QR-code call-to-actions to turn passive viewing into active engagement (click to download Origin's Nationwide QR code survey).

Meanwhile, AI-driven tools for rich metadata and content-level indexing are enabling personalized recommendations which can be mirrored in the creative message.

What This Means - And Why You Should Care

This panel at TVOT didn’t just reflect the current state of CTV - it foreshadowed what’s coming next. The industry is wrestling with real structural challenges: fragmentation across devices and apps, legacy agency mindsets, and user-experience tradeoffs tied to monetization. But the convergence of runaway CTV adoption, technological progress (AI + analytics + measurement), and hungry advertisers means the window for transformation is wide open.

If you’re a brand marketer, a content owner, or a platform builder: now is the time to lean in to Connected TV. Because history suggests that when change comes, it rarely waits.

You can find the original podcast here.

If you find this topic interesting and would like to know more, you can schedule a consultation with one of Origin's CTV specialists by clicking here.

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ABOUT ORIGIN 

Origin is a multi-award winning provider of creative solutions and services for media buyers, creative teams and brands who want to transform conventional CTV ad creatives into powerful, personal and provocative advertising experiences.

With unparalleled creative capabilities and proprietary ad serving technology, Origin’s unique suite of dynamic ad overlays and native CTV ad extensions allows advertisers to engage distracted audiences and achieve the results they need.

Founded by media veterans Stephen Strong and Fred Godfrey, Origin is driven by the belief that winning viewers today requires breaking free from how it was done yesterday.

Learn more at: originmedia.tv