October 8, 2026

CTV Is Getting More Expensive in Russia: Why Prices Should Be Locked In Now

The CTV segment grew by 29% while the internet advertising market grew by 11%. Demand is outpacing supply, sellers are raising prices by 10–15% for the season — placement costs should be locked in in advance.

5 min read

Дефицит на растущем спросе: почему стоимость CTV нужно зафиксировать заранееAI-generated

The video segment, including CTV (Connected TV), grew by 29% in the first half of 2026 — while the entire Russian internet advertising market grew by 11%. The number of advertisers in Smart TV inventory increased by 30%. Demand is outpacing supply, and the key question for the fourth quarter is how and when to buy inventory. The analysis was prepared by Vlad Zykin, head of programmatic at digital agency Realweb.

What Place Has CTV Taken in Media Splits?

By autumn 2026, CTV has become a mature channel — with its own approaches to buying, evaluation, and optimization. Not only the number of advertisers is growing, but also the range of categories:

financial and insurance companies invested the most in CTV advertising in Yandex Direct (per Yandex data);
Launcher names automotive, e-commerce, FMCG, and real estate development as growing categories;
among Realweb clients, pharma and tourism are added to these.

CTV retains the advantages of digital: targeting, flexible campaign management, frequency control. The commercial takes up the whole screen, and a TV rarely belongs to one person. According to a study by Visible and Data Insight, 83% of Smart TV users watch it together with family or friends.

The main thing the channel is valued for in a media split is contact quality. According to Mediascope Brand Pulse, the Smart TV audience is on average 12% more receptive to advertising messages in the TV environment.

According to Yandex data, every second brand continued advertising in CTV after initial tests. According to an ARIA estimate, CTV accounts for about a third of all video advertising on the internet. According to ICMR, Connected TV already accounts for about 9% of the country's television budgets.

Why Is Demand Growing Faster Than Supply?

Smart TV penetration has reached 67% of households, and further growth depends on the pace of device fleet replacement — a slow process amid declining purchasing activity.

Access to inventory is expanding: over the past year, Yandex connected more than 100 TV channels to the CTV auction in Direct, and the volume of available inventory through the service grew by 81%. But the same inventory is sold through several access points, while unique impressions are limited.

At the same time, the rules for selling advertising in online broadcasts have tightened: since January 1, 2026, the NRA has blocked the replacement of standard TV advertising with digital blocks in the internet broadcasting of the largest TV channels. Digital inserts survived only in regional blocks — 15–30% of advertising airtime. There is almost nothing to replace the lost volumes: online cinemas earn mainly from subscriptions, with advertising generating only 3.6% of their revenue.

Advertisers compete for the same impressions — and this competition drives up the cost of placements.

How to Optimize Buying Costs?

CTV inflation for 2026 is estimated at 14–18% for interface placements. In the low season — late spring and early summer — costs for large advertisers barely grew, as confirmed by campaigns of clients from pharma, B2B, home appliances, real estate, and beauty.

By autumn, prices started rising again. According to Realweb's buying data, in October–November most sellers raise the base price by 10–15% as a seasonal coefficient — both in bookings and in the auction. Discounts are given for volume and budget confirmed in advance. Without fixing, the advertiser buys at the base price and overpays.

That is why prices need to be locked in through commits and direct deals for the fourth quarter of 2026 and for 2027. The scheme resembles the television market: the closer the high season, the less freedom in choosing inventory and terms.

What Factors Will Push Prices Up?

Three factors are pressuring inventory costs.

Consolidation of sales. The NRA is negotiating to become the sole seller of advertising in the channels' online broadcasts — this would move sales into the logic of broadcast TV, where competition between sellers is practically nonexistent.
Shortage of proprietary inventory. Inventory is owned by sales houses (Digital Alliance, Everest, GPM), ecosystems (Yandex, Sber, MTS, Beeline), and Smart TV device manufacturers (LG, TCL, Hisense).
Intermediary markups. Remnant inventory goes into programmatic and can be resold several times. According to a study by Hybe, about 30% of devices in Russian CTV inventory cannot be identified geographically even down to the city level, and less than 25% transmit interface language data. Each link makes buying more expensive: the effective CPM rises without any increase in actual volume.

Can CTV Replace Television?

A direct comparison is difficult: TV is measured in GRPs and TRPs, CTV in impressions and reach. Realweb ran a pilot model comparing the online broadcast inventory of TV channels in August 2026 with spot buying of classic TV for the electronics category. Impressions were converted into a TRP equivalent using a co-viewing coefficient of about 1.6 viewers per impression.

The result: the cost per rating point in CTV turned out to be roughly 1.8 times lower than with spot TV buying. But the scales of available inventory are not comparable without accounting for VOD and other placements, so this does not prove that CTV is "cheaper than TV."

The main conclusion is different: CTV does not replace television but complements it. The reach of a TV campaign plateaus, and each subsequent rating point goes to those who have already seen the ad. CTV helps reach viewers who watch little television or none at all.

Where Will New Inventory Appear?

The most capacious growth zone is the paid audience of online cinemas. In 2025, their revenue grew by 45% thanks to subscriptions, while advertising revenues fell by 9%. In April, Ivi launched advertising inside paid content — if others follow suit, CTV will gain a new layer of premium inventory.

The second zone is the combination of CTV and e-commerce. In the US, shoppable CTV is already being developed by Walmart, Target, and Amazon. In August, Yandex began testing shoppable advertising on CTV in Direct with product cards and QR codes. Development is hindered by the division of data and screens between players: only certain ecosystems control both the audience and the device.

What to Do Before the End of the Year?

CTV will keep getting more expensive. While the market works out the transparency of the resale chain, an advertiser has five options:

lock in prices through commits and deals for the fourth quarter and 2027;
check the buying chain and factor its transparency into supplier selection;
test in the low season, buy premium inventory in advance;
if TV is in the split — compare CTV and television using comparable reach and rating metrics;
in a non-TV split, use available CTV inventory and assess the impact of placements on business metrics.

Original: interactivead.ru