National TV Upfronts: The Shift to Streaming, Curation, and Precision for Healthcare Brands

Executive Summary

An agnostic approach to video advertising ensures that healthcare brands can have a scaled presence across CTV, OTT, addressable TV, and data-enhanced linear without compromising on compliance, efficiency, or reach. Whether activating patient education campaigns, driving disease awareness, or launching new therapies, our proprietary video practice is designed to maximize media precision in every format. As upfront strategies modernize, healthcare advertisers must prioritize curation, flexibility, and measurement. At the forefront of shaping the evolution of TV, CMI Media Group is here to guide that transformation, bringing innovation, clarity, and confidence to every video investment.

The widespread use of streaming services and Connected TV (CTV) is causing a major shift in the national TV advertising market. Streaming services now account for a record 43.5% of all TV viewing as of February 2025, almost equaling the 44.4% share of traditional TV.

The migration of audiences to digital platforms is reflected in advertising expenditures. CTV ad spending is expected to reach $33.35 billion by 2025, with video ads accounting for 98.4% of that total. This trend highlights the growing emphasis on streaming investments as traditional TV ad spending declines.

TV has also become more accessible to brands of all sizes because of the growth of CTV. Historically, TV advertising needed significant Upfront commitments and budgets. But now CTV’s programmatic capabilities enable more flexible and economical campaigns. In fact, one of CTV’s biggest advantages over linear television is how familiar the buying and targeting process feels to digital marketers. According to eMarketer, 90% of CTV advertising is being done programmatically.

, CMI Media Group’s approach is strategically aligning video formats to audience’s behavior and brand objectives, ensuring that healthcare brands remain visible in the platforms where audiences are most engaged. Whether activating large-scale linear events, extending reach through CTV and FAST channels, or deploying advanced addressable strategies, we orchestrate video activations that deliver precision, performance, and compliance across every screen.

These changes bring with them both new possibilities and challenges for healthcare advertisers. Prompting a reevaluation of strategies. Should we stick with Traditional TV’s broad audience or switch to CTV’s targeted precision? Or better yet both? Once dominated by linear television, upfront commitments now require a more curated and data-driven approach to ensure precision, efficiency, and transparency in media buying.

The Evolution of Upfronts: Integrating Linear TV with Digital Advancements

Historically, upfronts have been central to media planning and buying, where advertisers commit to purchasing television advertising time ahead of the broadcast year. However, the rise of streaming platforms and digital video has disrupted this traditional model  offering greater flexibility, cost efficient pricing structures, and precision targeting that appeal to modern healthcare advertisers. Streaming services provide advertisers with more flexibility when purchasing ad inventory with increased adaptability, accommodating shifts in market conditions and audience behaviors. Additionally, digital platforms often present more affordable pricing, enabling optimized budgets and better returns on investment. The precision targeting capabilities inherent in digital video facilitate tailored messaging to specific demographics, enhancing engagement and effectiveness. While the rise of CTV has introduced new platforms, linear TV continues to play a significant role, especially when enhanced with data-driven strategies to improve ad placements rather than just age and gender. This integration allows healthcare marketers to optimize their media strategies, ensuring comprehensive audience reach across both traditional and digital channels.

Data-Driven Linear TV: Enhancing Precision and Engagement

Linear TV, when augmented with data, offers healthcare advertisers refined audience targeting capabilities. By leveraging data-driven insights, brands can deliver messaging to strategic audiences, such as patients with health conditions or healthcare professionals seeking continuing education. This precision enhances engagement and maximizes outcomes. To proactively ensure this need continues to be met, CMI Media Group has advanced its linear TV offerings by integrating data-driven strategies, which allow for more effective targeting and measurement. ​

CTV and Streaming: Unlocking Precision and Performance for Healthcare Advertising

Connected TV offers healthcare marketers unparalleled precision in audience targeting. Historically, viewed as a complement to traditional linear TV efforts to reach audiences who prefer streaming services, thereby expanding the overall reach of campaigns. Since February 2023, CTV streaming has accounted for over one-third of all TV consumption in the United States, and since May 2023, it has accounted for over 36%, reflecting a fundamental change in consumer behavior. With this continued shift in consumption habits some may say that linear TV is now a complement to CTV. Healthcare marketers must adapt to this reality, ensuring their media strategies align with where audiences are consuming content.

CTV allows for privacy complaint data-driven strategies, by leveraging first-party data, contextual relevance, and audience segmentation. Brands can deliver personalized messaging to specific audiences at the right time, such as patients with health conditions or healthcare professionals (HCPs) engaging in continuing education. Faster audience targeting and contextual brand alignment with programming and content are two benefits of AI’s arrival.

Furthermore, the rise of Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) offers a significant opportunity for healthcare advertisers to scale campaigns affordably while retaining the traditional feel of linear. Services such as Roku Channel and Tubi are driving FAST adoption, reaching millions of households. These platforms offer healthcare brands a powerful avenue to deliver compliant messaging in trusted, TV-like environments, with built-in audience scale and genre-based content targeting.

In fact, research shows that 57% of patients find medical ads on CTV more relevant than those seen on traditional television, reinforcing the need for precision in campaign execution. This level of engagement, combined with CTV’s interactive capabilities, makes it a powerful tool for pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare service brands looking to optimize their media investments.

Strategic Buying: Navigating a Complex Media Landscape – Know What You Are Buying in a Fragmented Ecosystem

As streaming inventory expands, so does the complexity of media buying. Unlike the more controlled environment of linear TV, the digital ecosystem introduces concerns around transparency, quality, and ad placement. Healthcare advertisers cannot afford ineffective or misaligned placements, to address this a curated approach is necessary to get it right.

A curated approach ensures:

• Ads appear in premium, brand-safe environments that align with regulatory requirements.
• Media investments are optimized by eliminating waste and focusing on high-value inventory.
• Campaign performance is measurable through data-driven insights.

Customization based on genre, data, content, or verticals allows healthcare brands to maintain transparency and control over their advertising efforts. CMI Media Group proactively addresses these challenges through optimizations in supply path, curation strategies, and continued testing of emerging products and platforms. These efforts help streamline media buys, ensure transparency in programmatic executions, and improve efficiency, critical factors for healthcare brands navigating an increasingly complex video landscape.

Strategic Integration: Combining Linear TV and CTV

An integrated approach that combines strategic data-driven linear TV and CTV enables healthcare brands to maximize audience reach and engagement. This strategy ensures that messaging is consistent across platforms, catering to diverse viewing preferences. CMI Media Group’s dedicated video practice exemplifies this integration, overseeing video and advanced TV capabilities, including data-driven linear, addressable TV, CTV, and OTT streaming video platforms and partners.

Live events such as the Super Bowl, March Madness, and breaking news remain unparalleled environments for delivering mass-scale healthcare messaging. These appointment-viewing moments not only drive engagement across linear but are increasingly being simulcast across CTV platforms, offering synchronized impact across formats. Healthcare brands can harness these moments to raise awareness or time-sensitive health initiatives.

Halo Effect: How TV Advertising Amplifies Performance

A linear TV and CTV program can have a significant impact not only on brand recognition, but also on search and social marketing results. As audiences become increasingly multiscreen, how healthcare marketers approach full-funnel engagement is being transformed by the interplay between upper-funnel video impressions and downstream consumer behavior.

Research consistently shows that TV advertising sparks digital exploration. Search engines are increasingly used by patients and caregivers after seeing a TV ad to validate treatment options, locate healthcare professionals, or seek support. This halo effect presents an opportunity to align storytelling across the patient journey.  The exposure of a CTV ad for a new diabetes treatment can result in incremental searches for condition specific key words, which result in more qualified traffic and lower costs. CTV’s digital platform further enhances this halo effect by enabling audience retargeting, sequential messaging, and cross platform remarketing, which can extend the user journey from passive awareness to active intent.  According to VAB research shows that brands see a 35% increase in traffic when a TV ad is present, highlighting the direct correlation between television exposure and online activity. Similarly, brand awareness delivered via TV can boost organic engagement on social communities, particularly when supported by high-recall video creative. MNTN data highlights that after adding CTV to the media mix conversion rates for paid social and search increased by 8.52% and 22.27% respectively.  

Measuring Success: Data-Driven Insights

Both data-driven linear TV and CTV provide valuable metrics for assessing campaign effectiveness. Beyond reach and frequency, healthcare advertisers must leverage advanced measurement solutions to assess campaign effectiveness.

Traditional linear TV advertising has transformed with the advent of data analytics, enabling more precise targeting and measurement. CTV platforms offer sophisticated measurement capabilities that complement data-driven linear TV strategies. By connecting data across linear and streaming channels, healthcare brands can assess how each ad drives patient engagement and outcomes, leading to more informed decision-making. ​ Understanding the unique audiences reached through each platform helps in optimizing media strategies to avoid redundancy and enhance overall reach. ​

The Path Forward for Healthcare Brands

The evolution of the national TV upfronts, fueled by advancements in both linear TV and CTV, presents a pivotal opportunity. By embracing data-driven strategies, adopting curated media approaches, and utilizing integrated platforms, healthcare marketers can navigate the evolving media landscape effectively.

CMI Media Group is helping healthcare brands navigate this transformation with confidence. The key to success in this new era lies in precision, transparency, and innovation assuring that healthcare brands not only reach their audiences but do so with impact and efficiency.