RTL AdAlliance’s TV Key Facts 2025 highlights broadcasters’ vital role in shaping brand trust

• Two in three Europeans consider brands that appear in long-form professional content most trustworthy, helping boost brands’ reputations
   
• Europe continues to have the most avid TV viewers compared to the global average in 2024 with 3 hours 6 minutes daily, approximately one hour more than the United States (2 hours 19 minutes) and double as much than China (1 hour 32 minutes)
   
• Smart TVs have become a standard in Europe with a device penetration per household of 68.4 per cent, with the UK leading in Europe with 98.5 per cent
   
• The TV Key Facts 2025 identifies three aspects to achieve brand trust: fame, cultural relevance and visibility within credible media

This year’s TV Key Facts by RTLAdAlliance, the international sales house of RTL Group, centres on the value of trusted media and local market specificities. While digital platforms account for around 76 per cent of advertising spend, framing the market solely by advertising channels can be misleading. A more insightful approach, highlighted by the TV Key Facts, is to evaluate advertising by the value it delivers in terms of reach, engagement and impact to advertisers. This perspective provides a clearer understanding of the role each advertising channel plays in driving busi-ness outcomes. Here, content media, encompassing media properties such as entertainment and information content, leads the way with 58 per cent of ad investment, of which streaming TV grows the most with 12.5 per cent year on year (1). An analysis of leading global markets reveals that, behind global trends, market realities vary significantly. In China, for instance, retail holds a much greater share of the ad mix than TV – whereas in the other market studies, retail trails behind television.

For 66 per cent of Europeans, brands appearing in ads on TV for the first time make themfeel or appear more trustworthy. TV is considered to provide the most credible media environment with the least amount of misinformation and highest level of authenticity. In fact, premium content such as legacy shows, classic shows originating from broadcast TV which are now also widely available for streaming, represent the majority of the Top 25 shows on global streaming services (2), with linear TV having a daily reach of 63 per cent in Europe, proving the power of mass media. The average daily TV viewing time in Europe remains high at 3 hours and 6 minutes, maintaining a gap of approximately one hour compared to the United States (2 hours 19 minutes) and 1.5 hours compared to China (1 hour 32 minutes). The publication reveals that advertisers can leverage these premium contents and strong viewing times to increase their brand trust.

Viewing trends in the individual European markets vary strongly. The UK, for example, boasts an astounding 98.5 per cent device penetration of smart TVs per household, 30 percent higher than the European average (68.4 per cent) and more than double as much than in the least-equipped markets. Accompanied by over 8.5 billion app launches per day on smart TVs across Europe’s main markets (3), this prevalence has led to a diversified video landscape in the UK, split between streaming and linear TV. Combined with a large population and high spending per capita, this positions the UK as Europe’s top advertising market – a fact underlined by the growth of commercial TV to 5.27 billion GBP, which stems from innovative collaborations with new advertising marketplaces and measurement solutions. 

The value of trusted media holds strong even within news contexts. There is a growing number of “News Junkies” (4) – people who, on average, check the news approximately six times and read seven news articles per day. The research clearly shows that advertising alongside quality news content is safe for brands, irrespective of the news topic.

Stéphane Coruble, Chief Executive Officer, RTL AdAlliance, says:

“The media industry is flooded with data that can appear impressive, yet without expert interpretation, it often lacks meaning. Experts play a pivotal role in interpreting this data meaningfully. While global platforms frequently communicate seemingly impressive global numbers, transparency and accountability on campaign and market level are the more important differentiators. Which is what we are doing in the Total Video landscape. Our TV Key Facts aims to provide locally rooted, transparent, accountable and brand-safe data and insights for advertisers.”

Aurélie Brunet de Courssou, Sr. Director of Marketing, RTL AdAlliance, says:

“The aim of the TV Key Facts is to provide advertisers and media experts with a report that combines meaningful data on our industry with the newest research and insights available. With country-specific highlights and global perspectives, more accurate profiles can be drawn for each market, enriched by interviews with experts on the newest data and studies. Most importantly, the TV Key Facts provides brands and advertisers with a recipe for building trust, the ultimate KPI.”

Brands can expect the highest impact where audiences find credibility
Leveraging meaningful data to understand market differences between individual European media landscapes and tapping into trusted media environments can help brands build long-term brand recognition and maintain loyalty. This year’s TV Key Facts provides a trinity for success for advertisers looking to reach European audiences:

Be famous: In order for a brand to gain trust, it must be famous, which means being known by people. And linear TV continues to bring the highest reach in combination with time spent, as individuals worldwide spend 2 hours 19 minutes per day watching linear TV. The consumption and reach of linear TV are high throughout Europe.

Be culturally relevant: Achieving relevance means appearing on shows which are the biggest audience magnets – these vary from country to country, with e.g. reality shows in Germany making up 88 per cent of the 25 most popular streaming contents5. Meanwhile, localised legacy talent shows such as Dancing with the Stars are very popular overall in Europe.

Be visible in the most trusted media: Ads seen within professionally produced content are considered 44 per cent more trustworthy than those in non-professional content. TV creates the highest level of trust out of all media with 37 per cent (6). Especially important is that advertising alongside news creates positive results, even within sensitive news contexts. The average purchase intent after having seen an ad next to a specific news context remains between 61 to 64 per cent, regardless of sensitive, neutral, or positive news topics. The news as an environment remains the most efficient way to reach the valuable "News Junkies" audience – which represent about one in four viewers in the US.

(1) WPP, (2) Digital i, (3) Samsung Ads, (4) Stagwell, (5) AGF, (6) Thinkbox

Notes to editors:

The TV Key Facts live video on demand will be available on 7 November 2025, 10:00 a.m. CET under the following link: https://rtl-adalliance.com/tv-key-facts-2025

The new RTL AdAlliance trailer “Who do you trust” can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/349TkdG9_tM

For more in-depth insights into the most up-to-date data in this year’s TV Key Facts: Trusted media. Key facts., please send a request to Kathrin Müller (kathrin.mueller@rtl.com) to receive a copy of the book.

VP Communication & Brand
Carine Jean-Jean
carine.jeanjean@rtl.com
+33 6 30 51 58 73

PR Director
Kathrin Müller
kathrin.mueller@rtl.com
+49 40 286 686 117

RTL AdAlliance – simplicity for advertisers and value for publishers.

The media sales house RTL AdAlliance, a subsidiary of RTL Group, unites premium content publishers under one roof for international brands to connect with European audiences. Combining the most successful broadcasting, publishing and Adtech companies in Europe, RTL AdAlliance offers brands access to over 100 TV channels, 350 print publications, 40 radio stations and 5,000 premium web properties – with over 150 million daily TV viewers, 37 million Addressable TV households, over 40 million daily listeners and more than 4 billion online video ad impressions a month in one streamlined service – enabling unrivalled reach in Europe and beyond.

250 media sales experts all over the world provide dedicated support for successful international media campaigns. Advertisers gain simplified access to premium, brand-safe media space that reaches only the most engaged audiences. RTL AdAlliance also provides latest insights and innovations for the media world. In addition, RTL AdAlliance empowers publishers to make better use of their premium offering by leveraging smarter, simpler monetisation strategies, Adtech solutions, developed in Europe, and dedicated media sales expertise. 

Headquartered in Luxembourg and Hamburg, RTL AdAlliance has offices across Europe and North America.