Linear TV can deliver the kind of scale, visibility and impact that few other advertising channels can match, but only when a campaign is planned and bought with knowledge, care and attention to detail. With more than 20 years of direct, “paws-on”, TV media buying experience, MEERKATworks understands how to turn airtime into a campaign built around the right audience, locations, schedule and commercial objectives.
Traditional broadcast television can provide scale, visibility and shared viewing around programmes people actively choose to watch. It can also deliver measurable commercial results: our ITV campaign for Mackie’s of Scotland combined ITV1 with ITVX to build awareness south of the border, contributing to a 20 per cent year-on-year increase in product sales, an 11 per cent increase in UK penetration and more than 200,000 new buyers.
At the same time, BVOD, VOD, streaming, connected TV and geo-targeted TV have created additional ways for advertisers to reach television audiences, giving brands more options to build the right mix around their objectives, audience and budget. The result is not a choice between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ TV – it is a broader set of options, each with different strengths.
At MEERKATworks, we have spent more than 20 years planning and buying television and other media campaigns and we know that effective TV advertising planning and buying involves much more than securing a collection of airtime spots. Audience, geography, scheduling, reach, frequency, broadcaster selection and budget all need to work together, with decisions led by the commercial objective rather than whichever TV platform happens to be attracting attention.
What is linear TV advertising?
The match. The final. The breaking story. The programme everyone is talking about. Live television has something other channels can’t replicate: the power of the moment.
Linear TV advertising is advertising shown within scheduled television programming. Viewers watch a channel according to its broadcast schedule, with commercials appearing in the advertising breaks around and within programmes. That distinguishes linear television from on-demand viewing, where the viewer chooses when to start a programme or film. In advertising terms, this is the difference between buying airtime within a scheduled broadcast environment and buying impressions delivered through an on-demand or streaming service.
Linear TV is the longest-established form of television advertising, but that does not make it disconnected from the way people watch TV now. It sits within a much wider television ecosystem in which audiences can move between scheduled channels, broadcaster streaming services and subscription platforms, often on the same television set. For an advertiser, the useful question is therefore rarely ‘linear or digital?’ – it is where, when and how the intended audience can be reached most effectively.
Why brands keep turning to linear TV
Linear TV continues to offer advertisers a particularly valuable opportunity: to build widespread visibility through a medium designed for high-impact audiovisual communication. And the audience is still substantial. Ofcom’s Media Nations 2026 report found that 54 per cent of people in the UK watched live or recorded television in an average week in 2025. Live programming can deliver audiences on an even bigger scale, with ITV reporting a peak audience of 18 million for England’s 2026 World Cup quarter-final. A television commercial has room to demonstrate a product, tell a story, introduce a new brand or reinforce an established one using movement, music, voice and imagery together. It is one of the reasons TV has traditionally played such an important role in major brand-building campaigns.
Scheduled television also creates shared viewing moments; entertainment, drama, sport, factual programming, and major live events can bring audiences together around the same content at the same time, giving advertising an opportunity to appear within an established programme environment. There is also flexibility in the scale of a campaign – national TV advertising can build awareness across the UK, while regional TV advertising can concentrate investment within selected areas. This means broadcast TV advertising should not automatically be dismissed by businesses that do not need, or cannot justify, blanket national coverage.
The value of experienced TV advertising planning and buying
Buying television airtime is one part of a much bigger planning job. Before a spot is booked, there are fundamental questions to answer. Who needs to see the campaign? Where are they? How quickly does the campaign need to build awareness? What level of repetition is appropriate? Are there particular periods, programmes or audience environments that matter? How should the available budget be distributed across the campaign? This is where long-standing practical experience is highly valuable.
MEERKATworks has been planning and buying media for more than 20 years, which means our understanding of linear TV advertising has developed through experience and direct, hands-on campaign planning, rather than simply alongside the recent growth of streaming.
Turning an audience into a television plan
A broad demographic description does not automatically tell you what airtime to buy. TV advertising planning requires the audience to be translated into decisions about broadcasters, programming environments, regions, schedules and expenditure. An experienced planner looks at where the audience opportunity lies and builds the schedule accordingly, rather than starting with a preferred channel and attempting to make the audience fit around it.
Balancing reach and frequency
Getting an advert onto television is not the objective in itself; the campaign needs to deliver an appropriate level of coverage and repetition within the available budget. Push too much investment into a narrow part of the schedule and a campaign may repeatedly reach the same viewers while missing others. Spread it too thinly and the campaign may lack the frequency required to make an impression. The right balance depends on the audience, budget, campaign duration and what the advertising needs to achieve.
Choosing when the campaign should run
An experienced TV media buying agency considers the wider context around a campaign: launch dates, seasonality, promotional periods, consumer behaviour and the other media activity running alongside television. The schedule should support the campaign rather than simply fill the dates between a start and finish point.
TV advertising buying and negotiation
Planning determines what the campaign needs to achieve; TV advertising buying turns that plan into airtime. This involves understanding the available inventory, trading arrangements and the relative value of different scheduling options, as well as making informed decisions when a campaign needs to be adjusted.
Cost efficiency is part of that equation too, as linear TV can often deliver a significantly lower cost per thousand (CPT) than Video on Demand (VOD), particularly when the objective is to reach audiences at scale. VOD can offer more precise targeting, but that precision typically comes at a higher CPT, so the right choice depends on whether a campaign is prioritising broad reach, tighter audience targeting or a combination of the two.
Our twenty-plus years of TV media buying experience means we understand not only how television is bought now, but how the practical relationship works between audiences, airtime, budgets, CPTs and campaign delivery.
National and regional TV advertising
One assumption around television advertising is that it automatically means a large national campaign. But it doesn’t. For brands with UK-wide distribution or broad national objectives, national TV advertising can provide the scale required to build visibility across the country. For other organisations, regional television can be the more appropriate route.
ITV, for example, provides regional advertising opportunities, allowing campaigns to be planned around defined areas rather than automatically running nationally. Geo-targeted advertising products can provide further geographic and audience targeting options depending on the campaign and broadcaster.
A recent example is our ITV advertising campaign for the National Disability & Carers Card Scheme. Rather than running nationally, MEERKATworks planned and bought live ITV airtime specifically across the South-East of England during August and September, using the reach and impact of linear TV to build awareness within the target region. This makes regional TV advertising relevant to businesses whose customers are concentrated within particular parts of the country, as well as organisations testing television as part of a wider media plan. The decision should start with geography and commercial reach. There is little value in paying to reach viewers in locations a business cannot serve simply for the sake of calling a campaign ‘national’.
Advertising on ITV, Channel 4 and Sky
Broadcaster selection is an important part of linear TV advertising planning, but there isn’t one universally ‘best’ channel. Different broadcasters, channels and programmes reach different audiences and offer different planning possibilities. The right mix depends on who the campaign needs to reach, where those people are, the available budget and the wider media strategy.
Advertising on ITV
Advertising on ITV allows brands to reach large UK audiences through some of the country’s best-known programmes, from primetime entertainment and live sport to news and drama. At MEERKATworks, we plan and buy ITV campaigns around the audience, budget and objectives, considering factors such as region, scheduling and programme environment to make sure the airtime is working as hard as possible. Where appropriate, ITV can also form part of a broader campaign alongside digital and other media channels.
Advertising on Channel 4
Advertising on Channel 4 gives brands access to distinctive programming and audiences across entertainment, factual content, comedy and drama. The MEERKAT team plan and buy Channel 4 campaigns around the audience, objectives and available budget, considering the most appropriate programmes, scheduling and regional opportunities. Where it supports the brief, linear Channel 4 activity can also be combined with digital and on-demand advertising as part of a broader media plan.
Advertising on Sky
Advertising on Sky gives brands access to a broad mix of linear TV channels, alongside more targeted opportunities through Sky AdSmart. At MEERKATworks, we plan and buy Sky campaigns around the audience, location, objectives and budget, using the most appropriate mix of linear and addressable TV. Where relevant, Sky activity can also sit alongside digital and other media channels as part of a wider campaign.
BVOD and VOD: Extending TV beyond the schedule
As viewing habits have expanded, so has the vocabulary around TV advertising.
Video on Demand (VOD) is the broad term for video content viewers choose to watch at a time that suits them rather than according to a fixed broadcast schedule.
Broadcaster Video on Demand (BVOD) refers to on-demand services operated by established broadcasters, including services such as ITVX and Channel 4’s streaming platform. BVOD retains a close connection with broadcast television content, while allowing advertising to be delivered within an on-demand viewing environment.
For a media planner, BVOD advertising can complement linear television by providing another route to broadcaster audiences, particularly where viewing is distributed between scheduled and on-demand consumption. Our multi-platform campaign for Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex is a good example of the two working together: the campaign video ran across both ITV linear television and ITV Hub within a geo-targeted area covering Kent, Surrey and Sussex, helping to build targeted coverage across all three counties.
It does not automatically follow that every linear campaign needs BVOD or vice versa. The role of each should be determined by the audience and what the campaign needs to deliver. For a broader overview of where TV sits alongside other channels, see our guide to broadcast media advertising.
Streaming brings new routes to TV audiences
Streaming services have added another layer to television media planning. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ all have advertising within at least part of their current streaming propositions, giving advertisers additional opportunities to place video advertising around professionally produced entertainment. This brings familiar television principles into a different buying environment. The campaign still needs a clear audience, objective, budget and creative strategy; the fact that the content is delivered via streaming does not remove the need for media planning.
Our VOD campaign for Lightning Fibre shows how these platforms can work together within a broader TV strategy. MEERKATworks planned and bought the campaign across ITVX, Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+, alongside other CTV channels, targeting viewers within Lightning Fibre’s coverage area. The campaign also included ITVX Pause Ads, creating another opportunity to reach viewers while they were engaged with content on the big screen.
Streaming has certainly widened the TV advertising market, but it has not made linear television irrelevant – it has simply given planners more possible routes to an audience.
Connected TV (CTV) and addressable geo-targeted TV: what is the difference?
CTV and addressable TV are often grouped together with streaming and VOD, but they describe different parts of television advertising. CTV refers to television content viewed through an internet-connected TV set or a television connected to the internet through another device. In advertising terms, CTV generally refers to video advertising delivered within these internet-connected viewing environments. It describes how the content reaches the screen, rather than a particular type of programme or advertising format. A broadcaster streaming service and a subscription streaming platform can both be watched via connected TV, despite having different content, audiences and advertising models.
Addressable TV, on the other hand, describes how the advertising is targeted. Rather than every household watching the same programme and seeing the same advert, addressable technology can allow different eligible households or audience groups to receive different campaigns. This is where geo-targeted advertising becomes particularly useful – advertisers can focus activity on selected locations rather than paying for coverage across areas that are not commercially relevant. Depending on the platform and campaign, targeting can be built around factors such as postcode areas, regions or defined geographic audiences, making television accessible to brands whose customer base is concentrated in particular locations.
Sky AdSmart is a good example, combining household-level targeting with television advertising so campaigns can be directed towards selected audiences and geographic areas. This can make addressable TV particularly useful for businesses looking for the impact of television without necessarily requiring nationwide coverage.
Why work with MEERKATworks for linear TV advertising?
Television has changed substantially over the two decades that MEERKATworks has been planning and buying media. Linear channels have been joined by broadcaster catch-up services, streaming subscriptions, connected televisions, addressable advertising and increasingly sophisticated ways to reach specific audiences. But the fundamentals of good media planning have not changed. You still need to know exactly who you want to reach, what you need them to think or do, where the campaign should run, how the budget should be distributed and what role each piece of media is being asked to perform.
Our experience in linear TV advertising gives us a strong foundation in these fundamentals. Added to this, our in-depth understanding of BVOD, VOD, streaming, CTV and addressable television means we can apply them across the wider TV market as it operates today. This might mean a media plan focuses on national linear television or carefully selected regional TV advertising. Or we may suggest combining linear airtime with BVOD or another streaming environment – our recommendations depend on the brief and your objectives.
If you are considering television advertising and want to understand where linear TV could fit, talk to the MEERKATworks team today.