Burger King Finds Linear TV a Tasty Choice, iSpot Reports

Burger King is finding success in the fast-food world with a media strategy that emphasizes linear TV networks, according to iSpot, a data company focused on measuring the outcomes of advertising campaigns.

According to iSpot, Burger King was able to take advantage of a market inefficiency as its competitors in the quick-service restaurant category chose to target specific audiences via streaming. Using linear, Burger King was able to achieve broad audience reach.

Over the first four months of 2026, Burger King accounted for more than 20% of all QSR linear ad impressions. The linear network it relied on most was TV Land, which delivered 6.59% of the campaign’s impressions.

Burger King bought ads at times when TV Land viewers would be hungry–and more likely to visit a QSR storefront. Those times were primetime, weekend afternoons and late-night.

Burger King’s ads on TV Land aired during classic comedies including Everybody Loves Raymond, The Big Bang Theory and The Golden Girls.

Following TV Land, Burger King’s biggest buys went to ESPN, AMC, Ion and CBS.

Those TV Land ads helped drive 8.24 million conversions, according to iSpot. Half of converted households from TV Land visited a Burger King location after seeing fewer than 21 Burger King ad impressions.

Those conversions happened quickly, with nearly 60% of the viewers who saw the commercials visiting a Burger King location did so within two days.

iSpot found that Burger King's "Inspired By You" commercial was especially effective with 18-to- 35-year-old consumers that reported they ate meals from quick serve restaurants 10 or more times per month.

Advertisers Boosting Spending on Streaming

While the Burger King story might argue otherwise, marketers are putting more ad dollars into streaming, according to a new report from DoubleVerify.

Viewers have been spending more time streaming since the COVID pandemic, but marketing investment shifted more slowly. Now, with additional evidence that streaming media quality can be verified, that spending can be optimized and results measured, more marketers are comfortable moving budgets from traditional linear TV.

The DoubleVerify report, Must-CTV: Streaming Shift from Promise to Performance, is based on a survey of more than 2,000 marketers and 22,000 consumers across 20 global markets. It also uses internal measurement data based on billions of impressions from DV-protected campaigns and tests.

According to the survey, 70% of marketers said they increased streaming investments on YouTube, compared to a year ago.

At the same time 65% said they increased their spending on Netflix, 59% boosted spending on Amazon Prime Video and 48% raised the spending in Samsung streaming environments.

“Globally, streaming TV has become a core part of the modern media mix,” said Collette Spagnolo, VP, marketing, integrated marketing & analytics at DoubleVerify. “Marketers are recognizing the value of platforms where consumers are spending more of their viewing time, particularly environments that can deliver both scale and measurable business outcomes.”

There is still room for improvement in streaming media, according to the marketer survey.

Among those responding, 52% said they would want the ability to target more precisely throughout the campaign lifecycle of streaming campaigns to justify more spending. This would require show-level insights during planning, audience segments during buying and dayparting measurement.

Better content verification was sought by 37% of the marketers in the survey and 35% were looking to integrate streaming in the media mix modeling and attribution systems.

Streaming also enables commercial formats that marketers are confident boost campaign performance, led by interactive ads with clickable elements such as QR codes. Those were named by 79% of those surveyed.

Shoppable ads were named by 76%, in-content overlay within or alongside shows and movies were cited by 66% and pause ads got 64%.

The key measures marketers said they looked at when evaluating the performance of ads on streaming TV were cost efficiency, reach and frequency, viewability, brand awareness or brand lift, delivery to target demos and return on advertising spending.

Comscore Sells Movie Business, Which Will Be Renamed Rentrak

Comscore said it agreed to sell its movie box office measurement business to Advaya Capital for $70 million in cash. Advaya said that it will return to business to its original name Rentrak.

Advaya also said it plans to invest in Rentrak to grow its dataset and build out its analytics capabilities.

“Comscore Movies has been the gold standard for box office data for nearly 50 years, and we will continue to provide customers and exhibitor partners with the same platform and same trusted service,” said Anant Gupta, managing partner of Advaya Capital. “This acquisition is a commitment to the theatrical industry’s past, present and future.”