Streaming Ad Budgets, OTT Viewing Gain: Roku CFO

Many advertisers are allocating more of their budget mixes to streaming at a faster rate than pre-pandemic, correlating with the rise in over-the-top viewing, Chief Financial Officer Steve Louden told an investor conference. A third or more TV viewing is on streaming devices, he said Monday. The traditional advertising upfront process lagged that pace until COVID-19, when advertisers didn’t want to lock up their budgets six to 12 months in advance “with a lot of strings attached,” he said. “They pulled back to have more flexibility.” They wanted to see more definitive analyses on the return on investment of marketing dollars, and average revenue per user is “increasing nicely” and is still in “early innings,” he said. On Roku’s April purchase of Nielsen’s video automatic content recognition technology (see 2104160009), Louden said having ACR data under its control was important long term “so we can sell ACR audience guarantees.”