Connected TV Advertising: Stop Buying 5 a.m. to Midnight

By Troy Alexander, Owner and Executive Director, Saint Paul Agency

Connected TV advertising works best when it follows how people actually watch: in primetime, inside specific programs. Many agencies still buy streaming TV from 5 a.m. to midnight across dozens of networks, add an audience layer, and call it targeted. In October 2026, Saint Paul Agency bought primetime YouTube TV at an average $13 CPM. Narrowing the daypart did not raise the price.

Key takeaways

• • A 5 a.m. to midnight connected TV buy spreads impressions into the hours with the smallest and least valuable audiences, including overnight infomercial programming.

• • Streaming reached 49.0 percent of U.S. TV viewing in July 2026, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge. The pipe into the house changed. The hours people watch did not.

• • Connected TV can be targeted by audience and by daypart at the same time. Choosing one over the other is a false trade-off.

• • Saint Paul Agency averaged a $13 CPM on primetime YouTube TV in mid-October 2026, across more than 50 client accounts, by buying at auction.

• • In Saint Paul Agency’s experience, many advertisers are being quoted fixed CPMs near $78 for programmatic YouTube TV.

Why it matters

Our clients are family-owned businesses. They are spending their own money, not a corporate budget.

Every impression that lands at 5:10 a.m. on a Tuesday is a dollar that never had a shot at a buyer. And with streaming now carrying nearly half of all U.S. TV viewing, more of that money moves into connected TV every quarter. If the buy is built wrong, the waste grows right along with it.

What does a 5 a.m. to midnight programmatic TV buy actually get you?

A 5 a.m. to midnight programmatic TV buy spreads a budget across every hour of the broadcast day and many networks, then trusts an audience layer to find the right viewers. The result is volume. A large share of impressions land in midday and overnight hours, when your best prospects are at work or asleep.

I know this model from the inside. Before we started Saint Paul Agency in 2015, my partners and I sold cable at Comcast Spotlight. Leadership wanted us to sell 5 a.m. to midnight, 22 networks deep, at a very low price per commercial.

It moved inventory nobody else wanted. It did not always move product for the advertiser.

In those buys, 30 to 50 percent of a client’s spots could fall between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Some landed inside a vacuum infomercial on A&E at 5:10 in the morning. That’s an ad running inside another ad.

Programmatic streaming inherited the same logic with a new delivery system. My view is simple: I don’t want filler. I want all killer, no filler.

So when is the audience actually there?

When do people actually watch TV in 2026?

Americans still do most of their TV watching in primetime, 7 to 10 p.m. Central. What changed is the pipe. Streaming reached 49.0 percent of U.S. TV viewing in July 2026, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge, but the hours people sit down to watch have barely moved.

Here’s the part that didn’t change. Roughly 35 percent of TV viewing still happens in primetime. Right now you are reading a blog post, not watching TV. So are most of the high-income decision makers you want to reach between 9 and 5.

Which raises the obvious question. Do you have to give up audience targeting to buy primetime?

Should connected TV be bought by audience or by daypart?

Connected TV should be bought by both audience and daypart. The common belief is that narrowing the daypart, or picking specific programs, inflates CPMs until reach and frequency fall apart. At Saint Paul Agency, we layer audiences inside primetime programming every day, and the CPMs stay low.

Audience targeting alone still sprays. It finds the right household, then shows the ad at 11 a.m. during a rerun nobody is watching closely.

We buy the old-school way: direct program insertion, with modern audience data layered on top. Our clients like being in a favorite HGTV show, the late news, or a Monday night game. They can see it. They can tell their team about it.

See what connected TV looks like when it’s bought by program.

The next objection we hear is always about price.

Doesn’t buying primetime streaming TV cost more?

Buying primetime streaming TV does not have to cost more. In mid-October 2026, Saint Paul Agency averaged a $13 CPM on primetime YouTube TV, 7 to 10 p.m., across more than 50 client accounts. Many advertisers are being quoted $78 fixed CPMs for the same platform.

The difference is how the inventory is bought. We buy at auction instead of at a fixed CPM or a guaranteed premium rate.

Auction pricing moves with the market. Some weeks run a little higher. Most of the time, a budget stretches much further than a fixed rate allows.

Why do so many agencies sell a fixed CPM? Because a fixed rate leaves room for markup, and the advertiser pays for it.

We buy everything in-house, through FLOYD, our demand-side platform, and directly on YouTube TV.

So how do you know which kind of buy you have?

What should you ask your agency about where your ads ran?

Ask your agency three questions. What share of your connected TV impressions ran between 7 and 10 p.m.? Which networks and programs carried your ads? Are you paying a fixed CPM or the auction rate? Any agency buying connected TV well can answer all three from one report.

We ask the same questions when we audit a prospect’s media. Most of the time, the people running the account are working hard. The problem is a setup built for volume.

A daypart report and a program list are standard outputs from any modern buying platform. If you can’t get them, ask why.

Action steps

1. 1. Pull the last 90 days of your connected TV delivery and sort impressions by hour of day.

1. 1. Add up the share that ran between midnight and 7 a.m., and between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

1. 1. Ask for a list of the networks and programs that carried your ads.

1. 1. Ask whether your CPM is fixed or bought at auction, and who sits between your budget and the platform.

1. 1. Compare your blended CPM to what primetime YouTube TV cleared at auction this fall.

What would those numbers tell you about the last six months of your TV budget?

Frequently asked questions

Is programmatic TV the same as connected TV?

No. Connected TV describes where an ad plays: a streaming app on a TV screen, such as YouTube TV, Hulu, or Peacock. Programmatic describes how the ad is bought, through software that bids on impressions. Connected TV can be bought programmatically across every daypart, or narrowed to primetime and specific programs.

How much does connected TV advertising cost in 2026?

Connected TV advertising cost depends on the platform, the daypart, the audience, and whether the CPM is fixed or bought at auction. In October 2026, Saint Paul Agency’s primetime YouTube TV CPMs averaged $13 at auction, across more than 50 client accounts. Fixed-CPM quotes for the same platform often run near $78.

What is a daypart in TV advertising?

A daypart is a block of hours that TV advertising is bought and priced by, such as early morning, daytime, primetime and late night. Primetime runs 7 to 10 p.m. Central and Mountain, or 8 to 11 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, and draws the largest audiences. Buying by daypart controls when an ad airs.

What is run-of-schedule TV advertising?

Run-of-schedule TV advertising lets the seller place an ad anywhere inside a broad window, often 5 a.m. to midnight, across many networks. The advertiser gets a lower price per spot. In exchange, the advertiser gives up control over which hours and programs carry the ad, so a large share can land in low-viewership time.

The bottom line

Streaming changed the pipe into the house. When people sit down to watch has barely moved. Connected TV advertising earns its keep in primetime, inside programs your customers chose, at a price the auction sets.

So how much of your budget ran while your customers were asleep?

Request a free media evaluation and we’ll show you, in plain language.

About Saint Paul Agency

Saint Paul Agency is a full-service digital advertising agency in St. Paul, Minnesota, built for privately held, family-owned businesses. Since 2015, the team has bought Google Ads, connected TV, YouTube TV, social and digital out-of-home media entirely in-house. As a Google Premier Partner with its own video production team, Saint Paul Agency measures success the way its clients do: more customers through the door, more revenue, and a bigger share of their market.

Learn more at saintpaulagency.com, or connect with Troy Alexander, Owner and Executive Director, and Kelly Flaherty, Owner and Director of Operations, on LinkedIn.