Performance TV has emerged as the leading destination for advertising investment as marketers confront rising media costs, AI driven disruption, and intensifying competition for consumer attention. New findings from the 2026 State of Performance TV Report released by tvScientific show that Performance TV now accounts for the largest share of media budgets, signaling a fundamental shift in how brands prioritize growth channels across the MarTech ecosystem.
According to the report, Performance TV represents 24 percent of total media spend, making it the number one investment channel for advertisers. It is also tied with social media as the most effective channel for delivering measurable results, outperforming search and other traditional digital formats. The shift reflects growing dissatisfaction with channels where competition and pricing volatility are eroding returns, and increasing confidence in Performance TV ability to combine reach with accountability.
“Performance TV is no longer an experiment. It has matured into one of the most reliable and accountable growth channels in modern marketing,” said Jason Fairchild, CEO and Co Founder of tvScientific. “Performance marketers are no longer testing TV at the margins. They are moving the budget to make room for it and putting it at the center of their media strategies.”
The report highlights how AI is accelerating this transition. Advanced automation and optimization tools are turning Performance TV into an always on experimentation engine, enabling faster targeting, creative testing, and optimization cycles. As a result, marketers are using Performance TV not only to drive awareness, but also to deliver full funnel outcomes that include direct sales impact and measurable brand lift.
Budget reallocation is a clear theme in the findings. Advertisers are increasingly shifting spend away from platforms such as YouTube, Meta, and TikTok, where competition for impressions continues to drive up costs. In contrast, Performance TV offers more transparent measurement and clearer return on ad spend, which has become a critical requirement as marketing teams face greater scrutiny from leadership.
Transparency expectations are also rising across the industry. More than half of marketers surveyed cited measurement clarity as essential to campaign success, reinforcing why Performance TV is gaining traction as an accountable alternative to opaque digital channels. Adoption is broad based, with more than three quarters of small and midsize businesses now running Performance TV campaigns, underscoring its accessibility beyond large enterprise advertisers.
The 2026 report builds on momentum identified in the previous year study, which showed that a majority of marketers were already increasing Performance TV budgets and reallocating spend from social and search. What was emerging in 2025 has now solidified into a clear market shift, with Performance TV officially becoming the leading advertising investment channel in 2026.
“Performance TV is now foundational to modern marketing strategies,” Fairchild said. “It delivers the accountability marketers have always wanted from television with the scale and impact they still need.”
As AI continues to reshape media buying and attribution, the rise of Performance TV illustrates how advertisers are recalibrating around channels that offer control, transparency, and outcomes. With Performance TV now at the center of media strategies, the channel is redefining how brands balance scale and precision in an increasingly complex advertising landscape.
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