Viant (DSP): 80% of CTV Ad Spend Now Moves Through Direct Access

On 10 August 2026, Viant Technology (DSP) told investors on its Q2 FY2026 earnings call that more than 80% of the connected-TV ad spend on its platform now transacts through CTV direct access — integrations that wire its demand-side platform straight into a streamer's ad server — up from just over 50% a quarter earlier [1]. Viant is the only company in this record disclosing the shift.

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How CTV ad money used to move, and which step is being skipped

Connected TV (CTV) is television watched over the internet: smart TVs, set-top boxes and streaming apps, and the ad slots inside them. Advertisers buy those slots through a demand-side platform (DSP), the system that bids and places ads for them. On the streamer's side sits an ad server, which decides what fills a given break and delivers it. Historically the two ends did not talk to each other. An open exchange sat in between to match bids, and every hop took a share of the advertising dollar.

Viant has removed the matching hop and connected its own system directly to the streamer's ad server. What could carry this to other buy-side platforms is price rather than product lock-in. The same impression costs less through a direct pipe: advertisers are paying 35% lower CPMs — the price of a thousand impressions — and management says that once existing customers see that arithmetic, moving budget across follows [1]. Clients of any DSP can run the same calculation.

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The buy side supplied the migration speed; the sell side's business did not shrink

Viant supplied both the pace and the end point. Direct access went from just over 50% of its CTV spend in Q1 2026 to more than 80% in Q2. In July it extended direct access to streaming services powered by Publica, an ad server that represents multiple premium publishers, and it expects the share to pass 90% in the near future and to approach 100% over time as it integrates with every major streaming service [1]. Revenue for the same quarter rose from $77.9 million to $104.3 million [4].

The layer in the middle did not disclose anything pointing the same way. On 5 August, Magnite (MGNI) said growth across its top 10 CTV accounts had accelerated to the mid-to-high 40% range year over year, with those accounts including Disney, ESPN, Netflix, Roku, Vizio, Walmart and Warner Bros. Discovery; on the same call it listed audience enablement and decisioning moving from the buy side to the supply side as one of the structural trends supporting its business [2]. PubMatic (PUBM) launched Decision Fabric in June, which lets advertisers, DSPs and technology partners deploy their own models directly inside PubMatic's infrastructure [3]. Together these facts support only a limited reading: the path on the buy side is genuinely changing, and the business of selling the inventory has not shrunk because of it.

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The 35% comes out of the matching step, and the ad server still cannot be bypassed

Only the matching hop has been removed. The streamer's ad server is not bypassed; it becomes the required stop. Viant's direct pipe terminates at that ad server, and the streamers it added in July run through Publica [1], which Comcast operates under FreeWheel. The control point may therefore move from who matches the bid to whose ad server holds the inventory, and what the middle layer charges for may shift from a cut of each transaction toward its own data and decisioning. Magnite's and PubMatic's moves in the quarter both point that way [2][3].

The boundary sits in the same record. A 35% lower CPM is a saving for the advertiser and less revenue per transaction for a middle layer that takes a percentage, yet growth across Magnite's top 10 CTV accounts was accelerating, which is consistent with a smaller cut per impression being made up in volume [2]. The market did not treat the buy side as the winner either: Magnite rose 17.7% on 6 August, the day after its results, while Viant fell 6.4% on 11 August [5]. What to watch next is whether Viant's direct-access share actually passes 90%, and whether its revenue growth holds up while CPMs keep falling.

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Which companies this change touches:

• Comcast (CMCSA): Its FreeWheel unit operates CTV ad servers such as Publica, which sits at the publisher end of the direct pipe and carries the streaming services Viant added in July. The higher the direct-access share, the more ad spend has to pass through that layer. The company has not disclosed anything on this specifically.
• The Trade Desk (TTD): The largest independent demand-side platform, in the same buy-side position as Viant. If a 35% CPM saving holds generally for advertisers, its CTV spend faces the same migration question.
• Roku (ROKU): Both a streamer with inventory to sell and an operator of its own ad platform, so it sits at both ends of the direct pipe — a potentially stronger negotiating position on the publisher side, and exposure to the same skipped step on the platform side.

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Sources

[1] Drillr · Viant Technology (DSP) · 2026-08-10 · Q2 FY2026 earnings call

"In the second quarter, we saw a step function lift in CTV ad spend allocated through direct access. Over 80% of CTV ad spend on our platform was transacted through direct access, a steep increase from just over 50% reported in the first quarter of the year."

[2] Drillr · Magnite (MGNI) · 2026-08-05 · Q2 FY2026 earnings call

[3] Drillr · PubMatic (PUBM) · 2026-08-06 · Q2 FY2026 earnings call

[4] Drillr · Viant Technology (DSP) · 2026-08-12 · financial data

[5] Drillr · Viant (DSP), Magnite (MGNI) · 2026-08-11 · price data

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