Despite years of predictions about the imminent demise of linear TV, it is still very much with us. What keeps it going, and who is watching? [Updated July 2025]
People have been writing about the death of linear TV for close to two decades now. A PwC report on the European Media Leaders’ Summit held in 2007 included a section titled ‘The death of linear TV: exaggerated, imminent, or simply premature?’ and that was 18 years ago.
Talk of the death of linear TV was premature back then. But it was also an excellent question to ask at the time. 2007 saw many changes in the industry, with Netflix announcing that it would start streaming video and the launch of the first iPhone both taking place that year.
Streaming is now dominant...
So, where are we now in 2025?
There is no definitive answer. 18 years of headlines regarding cord-cutting would point in one direction, but the fact that linear television is still here suggests that something else is going on, too.
Taking the US as an example, streaming is now the single most dominant platform, with 44.8% of total TV usage in the US, according to the Nielsen Gauge report for May 2025. In fact, May 2025 was a landmark month, with streaming eclipsing combined broadcast and cable viewing for the first time in history. However, it is worth remembering that the linear TV audience is still huge. If you add together broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%), linear TV has 44.2% of all viewing. And while it is undoubtedly falling (it was 56% in June 2022), that is still an audience of around one hundred million of people.
It also includes the rapidly expanding FAST channels, which continue to grow. In June 2023, the three services that Nielsen tracks (PlutoTV, Roku Channel and Tubi), captured 3.3% of total TV viewing in the US. Close to two years later, that number has risen to 5.7% while the number of FAST channels has almost doubled since mid-2023 (though it should be pointed out that the US still remains by far the dominant market for them).
2025 FAST revenues alone are expected to be $11.68bn. Furthermore, they are projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.47% up to 2023 leading to a projected market volume of $16.74bn by 2030.
Is linear TV dead? Certainly not while it keeps on finding new ways to reinvent itself.
6 reasons why linear TV is still very much alive
1. Live events. Streaming services will account for a fifth of global sports rights spend in 2025, according to Ampere Analysis, reaching $12.5bn this year out of a $64bn total. This is just short of 20% and a huge increase on the 8% of the total in 2021. However, that means that $51.5bn of rights investment remains with linear TV, showing that sport still very much remains the preserve of the major linear players (though operators do need to pay increasing attention to how to stop piracy to protect investment). Also increasingly important in this area is entertainment in the shape of large Light Entertainment programs with attached live voting procedures and long-running reality TV programs of the Love Island/I’m a Celebrity… genre that can build audiences during extended runs.
2. Targeted advertising. Being able to target audiences down to the household and even individual level is a powerful draw for advertisers, and targeted advertising is taking up an accelerating proportion of advertising spend. Technologies such as ATSC 3.0 and HbbTV provide the return path crucial for targeted advertising to work even away from the Pay TV delivery ecosystem, while new innovations such as L-band advertising increase inventory without alienating viewers.
3. Innovation. The best linear TV operators are looking at new ways of engaging with their audiences and using their broadcast reach to add reach into the digital world. By creating additional content around their top properties, they can chase a second-screen audience that extends way beyond the transmission time of their programs and take advertisers along with them.
4. Expertise. Linear TV companies are experts in many things and have large infrastructures and in-house skillsets capable of mounting even the most demanding broadcasts. And even if those skills and resources are now outsourced, expertise in project management is often crucial to making them happen. This is especially true when it comes to covering major events and the global news agenda;
5. Trust. This is ephemeral and difficult to measure, but linear TV broadcasters are part of the cultural fabric of many countries and often feature large news-gathering operations. They may not always be the first choice for entertainment programming anymore, but for major events, they still occupy a premier place in many viewers’ minds.
6. The Hybrid Approach. "If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em." Establishing VOD and even SVOD adjuncts to the linear TV business is now a well-established tactic and is getting easier with the advent of Cloud TV services. This has even seen erstwhile rivals collaborate, Netflix carrying TF1 in France next year, for example, with aggregation and super-aggregation an increasingly common play in mature markets.
Linear TV is not dead. To paraphrase (parrot-phrase?) the infamous Monty Python Parrot Sketch, it is not even resting or pining for the fjords. It is still very much here, and it is still very much relevant.
18 years ago, the PwC report on the European Media Leaders Summit talked of the future importance of integrating broadband and broadcast content and being able to watch on both TV and PC.
“If this hybrid environment does evolve, then the future may not revolve around the death of television, but around new life for digital advertising,” it concluded.
And close to 20 years later, the conclusion is roughly the same.
