Pixalate’s August 2026 OpenEPG Index provides a detailed view of where U.S. open-programmatic streaming TV advertising is being allocated across connected TV and mobile screens. The monthly benchmark ranks more than 580,000 shows using estimated consumer reach and measured programmatic ad-spend data, revealing a market where news, reality programming and large-screen viewing continue to attract substantial advertising demand.
Programmatic streaming TV is becoming increasingly fragmented across platforms, devices, channels and individual shows. For advertisers, that makes understanding where impressions and spending are actually concentrated an important part of media planning.
Pixalate’s latest OpenEPG Index attempts to provide that visibility by measuring U.S. open-programmatic advertising across both large-screen connected TV and small-screen mobile environments.
The August 2026 update maps more than 580,000 shows in Pixalate’s OpenEPG database and publishes the top 100 based on estimated U.S. consumer reach. The benchmark also measures each show’s share of open-programmatic ad spend by screen, genre, market and daypart.
The results show meaningful differences between CTV and mobile advertising behavior.
CTV Advertising Remains Concentrated in Reality and Scripted Programming
Large screens accounted for 64% of streaming TV ad spend in August, according to Pixalate’s analysis.
News and Reality together represented 63% of estimated U.S. CTV open-programmatic ad spend. Reality programming accounted for 29%, followed by News at 34%, while Documentary represented 11% and Crime 8%.
HGTV was the leading large-screen channel by ad spend, followed by Food Network and Bloomberg TV+.
At the individual-show level, Lifetime’s NCIS ranked first for estimated CTV consumer reach. The network also placed Castle and Rizzoli & Isles in the large-screen top 10, giving Lifetime three scripted series among the leading programs.
HGTV’s House Hunters ranked second, while CNBC’s Shark Tank placed third.
The pattern illustrates how programmatic CTV inventory extends beyond traditional premium scripted television. Lifestyle, reality, news and other frequently distributed programming can represent significant pools of addressable inventory for advertisers.
Mobile Streaming TV Has a Different Mix
The mobile market showed a stronger concentration around news and A&E programming.
The Weather Channel’s America’s Morning Headquarters ranked first by estimated consumer reach on Android and iOS for the second consecutive month. The Weather Channel LIVE and Weather Unfiltered also reached the mobile top four.
The Weather Channel accounted for 20% of mobile streaming TV ad spend, according to the analysis.
A&E was the leading small-screen channel by ad spend, with Storage Wars, Accused: Guilty or Innocent? and The First 48 among its major contributors.
News represented 39% of U.S. mobile streaming TV open-programmatic ad spend, substantially higher than its 34% share on CTV shown in Pixalate’s genre breakdown.
That creates a different inventory profile for advertisers planning campaigns across screens. Mobile streaming TV can provide access to news-heavy programming and daytime viewing, while CTV continues to capture a larger share of overall streaming TV programmatic investment.
National News Outpaces Local Stations
Pixalate’s analysis also identifies a distinction within news inventory.
Across mobile and CTV, national news outlets accounted for 59% of advertising spend on news programming, compared with 41% for local stations.
The difference is particularly relevant as advertisers evaluate streaming TV inventory not simply by genre but by publisher type, audience scale and distribution.
Live sports showed an even stronger large-screen orientation. Pixalate found that CTV captured 75% of live-sports ad spend, with soccer accounting for 27%, baseball 19% and boxing/MMA 16%.
For programmatic buyers, these differences can affect reach planning, device allocation and frequency management.
Open Programmatic CTV Becomes More Data-Driven
The OpenEPG Index reflects a broader shift in streaming TV toward more granular programmatic measurement.
Traditional television planning has historically centered on networks, shows and broad audience estimates. Programmatic buying introduces additional dimensions, including device type, inventory source, audience signals, bid-level activity and campaign-level performance.
A benchmark that connects estimated consumer reach with open-programmatic ad spend can therefore give advertisers another way to evaluate the supply landscape.
The data does not, however, establish that the shows receiving the greatest ad spend necessarily deliver the strongest return for advertisers. Share of voice and estimated reach describe the distribution of market activity; they do not independently measure conversion rates, incremental reach, brand lift or return on advertising spend.
That distinction will remain important as advertisers increasingly move budgets between linear TV, CTV, mobile video and other streaming environments.
For publishers, the data also highlights where monetization opportunities are concentrated. For advertisers and agencies, it provides another lens for assessing the composition of open-programmatic streaming inventory rather than treating CTV as a single homogeneous channel.
Market Landscape
Streaming TV advertising is developing into a multi-screen programmatic ecosystem in which CTV, mobile, FAST and digital video inventory increasingly overlap.
Pixalate’s August data shows that large screens remain the dominant destination for streaming TV open-programmatic spend, but mobile maintains substantial demand in specific genres, particularly news.
The split reinforces the importance of screen-level media planning. Advertisers can no longer assume that the same programming categories, dayparts or publishers will attract comparable demand across devices.
For ad-tech platforms, measurement providers and publishers, the challenge is increasingly granular inventory intelligence: identifying where audiences are, understanding how programmatic demand is distributed and determining whether individual supply sources generate incremental value.
As CTV inventory expands, benchmarks such as OpenEPG could become increasingly useful for evaluating supply concentration, genre allocation and publisher-level advertising trends.
Top Insights
- CTV captured 64% of streaming TV open-programmatic ad spend in August 2026, while mobile showed stronger concentration around news and A&E programming.
- News and Reality represented 63% of estimated U.S. CTV open-programmatic ad spend, highlighting continued advertiser demand for high-volume streaming programming.
- The Weather Channel accounted for 20% of mobile streaming TV ad spend, led by several news and weather programs.
- National news outlets captured 59% of streaming TV ad spend on news programming, compared with 41% for local stations.
- Live sports showed an even stronger CTV skew, with large screens representing 75% of live-sports advertising spend.
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