Linear TV’s share of agency budgets just hit a new low, and the money didn’t vanish. It moved. Digiday’s latest agency report tracks a hard pivot toward streaming and creators, and the numbers should make any brand still anchored to upfronts nervous. If you’re planning spend for the year ahead, this shift isn’t a trend to watch. It’s already baked into how your competitors are buying media.
The Headline Number: Linear’s Share Keeps Shrinking
Digiday surveyed agency media buyers across holding companies and independents, and the pattern was consistent: linear TV allocations are sliding further, with respondents reporting mid-to-high single-digit percentage drops year over year. That money isn’t sitting idle. Most of it is landing in streaming (connected TV, ad-supported tiers on Netflix and Prime Video) and in creator-led campaigns, particularly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram Reels.
This isn’t a story about one quarter’s budget reallocation. It’s a structural correction that’s been building since streaming ad tiers matured and creator content proved it can move product, not just impressions. Agencies are responding to client demand, not getting ahead of it. Buyers told Digiday that clients are asking pointed questions about linear’s declining reach among adults under 45, and they want answers that point toward measurable alternatives.
Agency buyers report that streaming and creator budgets are absorbing nearly all the dollars linear TV is losing, a reallocation rather than a net cut.
Why Streaming Is Winning the Reallocation Race
Streaming’s appeal isn’t mysterious. It offers addressable targeting that linear simply can’t match, plus the reach of premium content. Connected TV inventory from The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP, and Roku’s ad platform now lets buyers layer first-party data onto what used to be a blunt instrument. That’s a meaningful upgrade for brands trying to prove incrementality to finance teams.
But streaming isn’t a clean replacement for linear reach. Ad loads are lighter, inventory is fragmented across a dozen platforms, and measurement standards still vary by partner. Agencies interviewed for the report flagged this as the biggest operational headache: stitching together attribution across Hulu, Peacock, Max, and YouTube TV requires a measurement stack most mid-size brands haven’t built yet. For brands wrestling with similar fragmentation in attribution, the challenges mirror what’s playing out as zero-click AI answers force brands to rebuild attribution models across the board.
What Buyers Actually Said
Several agency sources described streaming budgets as “easier to defend internally” because the targeting data gives them a story to tell clients. Linear, by contrast, increasingly requires buyers to justify spend using reach metrics that executives no longer trust at face value. That skepticism tracks with broader industry findings that reach no longer predicts sales the way it once did, pushing brands toward scorecards built on conversion and GMV instead.
Creators Aren’t a Line Item Anymore, They’re a Media Channel
Here’s the part that should reshape how you think about agency briefs: Digiday’s report treats creator spend as a media buying category, not a separate “influencer marketing” bucket. That reclassification matters. It means creators are being planned, bought, and measured alongside streaming and social, competing for the same dollars with the same performance expectations.
Agencies report that creator budgets are growing fastest in categories where trust and authenticity drive purchase decisions: beauty, wellness, fintech, and increasingly B2B. That last one is worth pausing on. B2B creator spend has moved well past pilot status, and buyers are now building always-on creator programs the same way they’d build a programmatic display strategy. The shift tracks closely with how B2B influencer marketing graduated from pilot to demand engine, with procurement teams now expecting the same reporting rigor from creators that they’d demand from a programmatic vendor.
When agencies start buying creator content through the same briefs and KPIs as streaming inventory, it signals the category has fully entered the media mix, not just the marketing mix.
This convergence also explains why PR agencies are racing to build creator capabilities. Edelman’s expansion into creator partnerships is a visible example of a broader land grab for budget that used to belong exclusively to media buying desks, as detailed in coverage of how Edelman’s creator push signals a PR power grab on agency budgets.
Measurement Is Still the Soft Spot
Ask any agency buyer what keeps them up at night and creator measurement tops the list. Streaming at least has IAB-aligned standards emerging. Creator campaigns still rely on a patchwork of platform-reported metrics, third-party tracking links, and self-reported engagement. Digiday’s survey respondents said clients increasingly demand GMV and conversion data over reach and impressions, a shift that mirrors findings elsewhere showing GMV overtaking reach as the primary scorecard metric for creator programs.
This measurement gap is also why CFOs are pushing back harder on platform ROI claims. Finance teams want numbers that reconcile with revenue systems, not vanity dashboards. That skepticism has already forced a reckoning described in reporting on how influencer platform ROI claims crumble under CFO scrutiny, and agencies now feel that pressure directly when presenting creator plans alongside streaming buys.
Budget Mechanics: Where the Dollars Are Actually Flowing
Digiday’s data breaks the reallocation into three rough buckets based on buyer-reported shifts:
- Connected TV and streaming: absorbing the largest share of departing linear dollars, driven by addressability and premium content adjacency.
- Creator-led social campaigns: growing fastest in percentage terms, especially short-form video on TikTok and Reels, with live commerce integrations accelerating spend.
- Retained linear spend: increasingly concentrated in live sports and major cultural events, the inventory linear still owns outright.
That third bucket matters. Linear isn’t disappearing, it’s consolidating around the moments it still does better than anyone else. Buyers aren’t abandoning the NFL or awards shows. They’re abandoning everyday reach-and-frequency buys that streaming and creators now handle more efficiently.
The live commerce angle deserves its own mention, because it’s where streaming and creator budgets increasingly overlap. Shoppable livestreams on TikTok Shop and Amazon Live are blurring the line between “creator spend” and “streaming spend” entirely, a convergence covered in depth as live commerce nears default status for mainstream brand planning.
What This Means for Your Media Plan Next Quarter
If you’re a brand marketer reading this and still running a 2019-era media plan with linear as the anchor, the agency report is a clear signal to revisit assumptions. A few practical moves worth making:
- Audit your attribution stack before shifting dollars. Streaming and creator channels both require different tracking infrastructure than linear. Don’t move budget faster than your measurement can follow.
- Treat creator spend as a planned media line, not an experimental add-on. Build briefs, KPIs, and flight schedules the same way you would for any paid channel.
- Protect linear dollars for irreplaceable moments only. Live sports, major cultural events, anything with guaranteed simultaneous reach. Cut everything else first.
- Push your agency for GMV-level reporting, not just engagement metrics. If they can’t deliver it, that’s a vendor problem worth solving now.
For benchmarking purposes, industry data from eMarketer and Statista both show connected TV ad spend climbing at a faster clip than linear’s decline, confirming that advertisers aren’t just cutting budgets, they’re redirecting them with intent.
Platform-side, tools like TikTok Ads Manager and resources from Meta for Business have both expanded creator-focused buying features in the past year, a direct response to agency demand for better targeting and reporting parity with streaming inventory.
The Compliance Layer Nobody’s Pricing In
One thing the Digiday report touches on but doesn’t fully unpack: as creator budgets scale into agency media plans, disclosure and compliance risk scales with them. The FTC’s endorsement guidelines apply regardless of whether a creator placement was bought through a media desk or a marketing team, and agencies moving fast into this category need to make sure legal review keeps pace. Brands that have scaled creator commerce quickly have already hit friction here, a gap explored in coverage of how creator commerce outpaces compliance at the operational level. Review the FTC’s advertising guidance before scaling any creator-buy program through an agency partner.
FAQs
What is Digiday’s 2026 agency report about?
It’s a survey-based report tracking how agency media buyers are reallocating budgets away from linear TV and into streaming platforms and creator-led campaigns, based on direct input from buyers across holding companies and independent agencies.
Is linear TV spend disappearing completely?
No. Buyers are consolidating remaining linear spend around live sports and major cultural events where linear still delivers unmatched simultaneous reach. Everyday reach-and-frequency buying is what’s moving to streaming and creators.
Why are creator budgets being classified as media spend now?
Agencies are buying creator content with the same briefs, KPIs, and flight planning used for other paid channels, which signals creators have moved from an experimental marketing tactic into a core media buying category.
What’s the biggest risk in shifting budget to streaming and creators?
Measurement fragmentation. Streaming inventory is split across many platforms with inconsistent attribution standards, and creator campaigns still rely heavily on platform-reported metrics rather than unified, revenue-tied reporting.
How should brands prepare before reallocating linear budget?
Build or audit an attribution stack that can track both streaming and creator performance before moving significant dollars, and push agencies to report on conversion and GMV metrics rather than reach alone.
The agencies making this shift fastest aren’t guessing. They’re responding to client pressure for measurable results and reallocating accordingly. If your brand hasn’t audited its media mix against this pattern yet, the next planning cycle is the moment to do it, not after competitors have locked in the best creator and streaming inventory.
FAQs
What is Digiday’s 2026 agency report about?
It’s a survey-based report tracking how agency media buyers are reallocating budgets away from linear TV and into streaming platforms and creator-led campaigns, based on direct input from buyers across holding companies and independent agencies.
Is linear TV spend disappearing completely?
No. Buyers are consolidating remaining linear spend around live sports and major cultural events where linear still delivers unmatched simultaneous reach. Everyday reach-and-frequency buying is what’s moving to streaming and creators.
Why are creator budgets being classified as media spend now?
Agencies are buying creator content with the same briefs, KPIs, and flight planning used for other paid channels, which signals creators have moved from an experimental marketing tactic into a core media buying category.
What’s the biggest risk in shifting budget to streaming and creators?
Measurement fragmentation. Streaming inventory is split across many platforms with inconsistent attribution standards, and creator campaigns still rely heavily on platform-reported metrics rather than unified, revenue-tied reporting.
How should brands prepare before reallocating linear budget?
Build or audit an attribution stack that can track both streaming and creator performance before moving significant dollars, and push agencies to report on conversion and GMV metrics rather than reach alone.
Top Influencer Marketing Agencies
The leading agencies shaping influencer marketing in 2026
Agencies ranked by campaign performance, client diversity, platform expertise, proven ROI, industry recognition, and client satisfaction. Assessed through verified case studies, reviews, and industry consultations.
Moburst
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The Shelf
Boutique Beauty & Lifestyle Influencer AgencyA data-driven boutique agency specializing exclusively in beauty, wellness, and lifestyle influencer campaigns on Instagram and TikTok. Best for brands already focused on the beauty/personal care space that need curated, aesthetic-driven content.Clients: Pepsi, The Honest Company, Hims, Elf Cosmetics, Pure LeafVisit The Shelf → -
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Audiencly
Niche Gaming & Esports Influencer AgencyA specialized agency focused exclusively on gaming and esports creators on YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. Ideal if your campaign is 100% gaming-focused — from game launches to hardware and esports events.Clients: Epic Games, NordVPN, Ubisoft, Wargaming, Tencent GamesVisit Audiencly → -
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Viral Nation
Global Influencer Marketing & Talent AgencyA dual talent management and marketing agency with proprietary brand safety tools and a global creator network spanning nano-influencers to celebrities across all major platforms.Clients: Meta, Activision Blizzard, Energizer, Aston Martin, WalmartVisit Viral Nation → -
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The Influencer Marketing Factory
TikTok, Instagram & YouTube CampaignsA full-service agency with strong TikTok expertise, offering end-to-end campaign management from influencer discovery through performance reporting with a focus on platform-native content.Clients: Google, Snapchat, Universal Music, Bumble, YelpVisit TIMF → -
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NeoReach
Enterprise Analytics & Influencer CampaignsAn enterprise-focused agency combining managed campaigns with a powerful self-service data platform for influencer search, audience analytics, and attribution modeling.Clients: Amazon, Airbnb, Netflix, Honda, The New York TimesVisit NeoReach → -
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Ubiquitous
Creator-First Marketing PlatformA tech-driven platform combining self-service tools with managed campaign options, emphasizing speed and scalability for brands managing multiple influencer relationships.Clients: Lyft, Disney, Target, American Eagle, NetflixVisit Ubiquitous → -
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Obviously
Scalable Enterprise Influencer CampaignsA tech-enabled agency built for high-volume campaigns, coordinating hundreds of creators simultaneously with end-to-end logistics, content rights management, and product seeding.Clients: Google, Ulta Beauty, Converse, AmazonVisit Obviously →