$3.9 Billion Reasons to Rethink Broadcast
Or why I'm heading back to NAB again this year
So why am I heading back to NAB again this year? I’ll be speaking on a panel about agentic AI - and I’m excited about that - but the real reason I’m back is something more significant, something I didn’t expect to be talking about in 2025: broadcast TV.
I know, I know. Broadcast is supposed to be in decline. Linear is dead. Cord-cutting is the future. Digital killed the local star. But if we look back at why broadcast has been losing ground, the answer is surprisingly simple: it wasn’t the content or the reach. It was the targeting and the measurement.
Broadcast has been losing advertising dollars to digital for two reason: digital targeting and attribution are better. Marketers don’t love banners and skippable videos—what they love is knowing who saw their ad, what that person did next, and whether they were in the correct cohort. It’s not about content; it’s about connection.
But what if broadcast could do that, too?
That’s the promise of ATSC 3.0, or NextGen TV. It connects the TV to the internet. And once the TV is connected, everything changes.
At Run3TV, we’re already trialing retargeting with the households we have. And even at our current footprint, the results are compelling. But the real inflection point will come with scale.
If the FCC follows the NAB’s recommendation for a mandatory transition to ATSC 3.0 in 2028, then by 2029, we’ll have enough volume to support not just trials but a fully scaled, data-driven broadcast ecosystem. That means addressable advertising, real-time retargeting, and attribution that doesn’t stop at the screen.
None of this requires new business models. We’re not reinventing anything—we’re just unlocking capabilities that are already working in cable and CTV and bringing them to local broadcast. It’s the same playbook, just a bigger field.
So, what does that look like in numbers?
By 2029, we project 14.3M RUN3 TV-enabled households, growing to 25M by 2032.
That growth alone could drive $2.5B in incremental addressable linear revenue.
Add $0.9B in new retargeting revenue.
Plus $0.5B in data-driven linear ad sales.
That’s $3.9B in total incremental ad revenue—on a media supposedly in decline.
Even with conservative assumptions, we’re talking about 40%+ growth in broadcast advertising revenue. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a renaissance.
So yes, I will be talking about agentic AI at NAB. But I’ll also talk about why now is the time to rethink what we mean by “broadcast.” Because when the pipe gets smart, the whole platform changes.
I look forward to seeing you there.
