As traditional TV viewership migrates to streaming platforms, media companies are facing a new challenge – how to capture revenue from a growing streaming business while maximizing revenue from a still-large legacy linear business. What was once viewed as a distant threat from digital-first companies like Netflix and Amazon has now become a direct competitive reality, especially as these platforms secure rights to the crown jewel of broadcast content: live sports.
In the U.S., Amazon and Netflix have recently inked deals to stream NFL and NBA games, while Europe is seeing record streaming audiences for major events including the Paris Olympics and UEFA. To harness this exciting growth, international sports leagues such as France’s Ligue 1 and Italy’s Serie A are developing their own direct-to-consumer streaming platforms, signaling a global acceleration of this shift.
As live sports migrate to streaming, so does advertiser demand. While this is a revenue opportunity for media companies, it creates new operational complexity for media companies who need to bring these two audiences together to sell profitably and deliver a single campaign for an advertiser across different channels and platforms.
The Rise of Linear Streaming
To address this new landscape, media companies are turning to “linear streaming,” a strategy that combines the upfront premium sales process of traditional linear TV with the dynamic execution capabilities of digital advertising. This hybrid approach enables media companies to maximize yield while delivering impactful, ROI-driven solutions to advertisers. Linear streaming also provides media companies with the ability to lock in premium prices and secure predictable revenue streams with more traditional direct sales processes but combine it with long tail automated sales and dynamic multichannel ad delivery.
At its core, linear streaming requires a unified operational and sales workflow. Advertisers today care less about the specific platform and more about reaching their target audiences wherever they are watching. Media companies with fragmented systems for streaming and traditional TV will struggle to meet these expectations. By consolidating product, pricing, and proposal management into a single hybrid workflow, media sales teams can deliver streamlined, multi-channel proposals that deliver internal efficiencies and meet advertiser needs.
Optimizing Delivery and Maximizing Yield
Embracing linear streaming means embracing new technology and processes that can support a hybrid workflow. Many media companies need to do this while accommodating legacy systems that can’t easily be ripped out and replaced, so a modular approach can be a good option.
In either case – new tech or a combination of new and legacy tech – the goal is to create unified revenue management systems to reduce manual work, eliminate duplicate data entry, and automate workflows across both traditional and streaming inventory. These capabilities enable accurate volume forecasting, optimized delivery, and seamless execution that meets both advertiser demands and internal revenue targets.
This unified workflow approach also unlocks new strategic opportunities. When product, pricing, and advertising data are housed in a single system, media companies gain a holistic view of their business performance. This transparency supports improved forecasting, strategic analysis, and data-driven pricing optimization. It also enables leadership to clearly understand the growth trajectory of streaming relative to traditional linear TV, informing investment decisions, packaging opportunities, and competitive positioning.
Innovation on a Hybrid Foundation
Streaming media is still evolving, which will continue to accelerate over the next few years. Streaming advertising will also change dramatically as new forms of targeting, creative ad formats, and interactivity become the norm. A unified and automated linear streaming strategy is critical for future growth, and positions media companies to innovate with confidence.
Consider the future of live sports as an example. It is likely that in just a few years, audiences will be able to talk to their TV to get highlights, share real time content with friends on social media during a game, click on products and purchase them, and more. Advertisers will want targeted, interactive options that make the most of this environment, while also delivering coordinated campaigns on legacy linear, digital and even OOH.
With operational barriers reduced, teams can test these new ad formats, digital targeting solutions, and creative sponsorship models while continuing to support legacy broadcast business. Advertisers benefit from measurable, comparable results, while media companies benefit from increased demand for innovative, performance-driven ad solutions.
As streaming continues to expand, linear streaming provides a practical and powerful strategy for media companies to sustain their traditional TV businesses while scaling into the future of digital. By unifying operations, optimizing workflows, and leveraging dynamic execution capabilities, media executives can maximize yield and deliver what advertisers want most: impactful campaigns that drive real results.
