Linear TV could still be the best bet for European advertisers, according to new data from the RTL AdAlliance.
The RTL AdAlliance Living Room Study 2026 surveyed more than 15,000 people from 15 European countries, as well as the US and China, to compare how European watching habits differ from other major markets.
Overall, Europeans were found to watch more TV than US and Chinese respondents, with 64% of Europeans watching video content on their television every day, compared with 41% in the US and 40% in China. By comparison, 58% of European respondents watch video on a smartphone every day, compared with 61% in the US and 81% in China.
Europeans were also found to favour viewing in the living room, with 86% of European respondents saying that they mostly watch video there, compared with 66% in the US and 77% in China.
The preference for TV in the living room is great news for advertisers in Europe. A study published by Thinkbox in 2024, Context Effects, identified the living room as the space where people were most favourable towards ads they consumed. This effect is amplified by watching ads on a larger screen like a TV, which the same study found made viewers more likely to remember ads, as well as watching with other people, which Thinkbox claims increases positive attitudes of ads by 23%.
The Living Room Study found that, while most Europeans (55%) watch either linear TV or BVOD every day, and even more (62%) go to those sources first when looking for something to watch, ad-supported streaming is on the rise. Fifty-five percent of European respondents now subscribe to at least one paid ad‑supported tier of a streaming platform.
Indeed, the number of subscribers to ad-supported streaming is rising faster in many European countries than in the US. For example, in both the UK and the US, 38% of respondents had an ad-supported subscription to Prime in 2025. In 2026, 64% of Americans and 76% of Brits did.
Still, Europeans were found to be less likely to be using them in large volumes. While 29% of Europeans surveyed have a Disney+ account, compared to 26% of Americans, the American respondents were twice as likely to watch Disney+ weekly. Similar patterns were seen on other major platforms including Prime and Netflix.
Perhaps this is explained by another of the study’s findings: European viewers prefer ads on linear TV to streaming. It states: ‘Europeans are unsure why ads appear on Streaming VOD platforms. When the purpose is unclear, patience drops quickly. This misunderstanding feeds frustration.’
Forty-six percent of European respondents said they were annoyed by ads on linear TV and BVOD, compared with 60% on SVOD.
A spokesperson for RTL AdAlliance told MediaCat: ‘Only 50% of the European respondents answered ‘I understand it very well or somewhat’ to that question for the SVOD.’
By comparison, 71% gave this response for BVOD and 83% for linear.
The spokesperson attributed this sentiment to ‘the fact that the ad tiers are still quite recent, viewers were used to an ad free experience on SVOD up until recently’, and in particular to Amazon Prime putting ‘everyone on the ad tier by default (and you would have to pay not to see ads)’.
‘This move for sure created incomprehension,’ they said. ‘We believe this explains why 60% of the European respondents tell us that they are annoyed by ads on SVOD.’
The survey does offer another potential explanation for the greater acceptance of ads on TV: Europeans are more likely to find local content on broadcasters than streaming services. For Americans, this is not the case. As the report states: ‘In the US, it is unsurprising that local content is more often consumed on SVOD services. Global streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video are American by origin and therefore offer a broader and more familiar range of home‑grown productions.’
By contrast, Europeans have a ‘strong’ appetite for local programming, with a range from 80% in Hungary to 60% in Sweden agreeing that it is ‘important to have access to local video content’. With large numbers of people valuing and prioritising local content, and able to get it almost exclusively from local broadcasters in many countries, it makes sense that viewers are more understanding of why those broadcasters need adverts to remain afloat.
‘There is a reason Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and YouTube are seeking partnerships with European broadcasters,’ said Marion Ranchet, founder of Streaming Made Easy, who wrote the foreword to the study. ‘This environment, the trust, the consistency, and the audiences who show up and stay, is not something a platform can manufacture through pure scale or spend. It was built over decades of local broadcasting, free‑to‑air access, and cultural proximity.’