Automakers spent an estimated $2.1 billion on linear television advertising from January to early December 2025, with heavy emphasis on sports programming, according to iSpot, a cross-platform video ad measurement and analytics company.
Linear advertising represents traditional commercials broadcast during scheduled programming on cable or satellite networks, as opposed to on-demand streaming.
While still substantial, the figure represents a 9.45% decrease from the 2024’s spend, iSpot said in its 2025 Automaker TV Advertising Snapshot, which was emailed to WardsAuto.
The spend in 2025 generated 133.9 billion linear TV impressions — individual instances of an ad appearing on a screen — for automakers, a 17.76% drop year-over-year. The impressions were generated over 819,700 ad airings, which were similarly down 17.02% YoY, iSpot said.
Lexus was the most-seen automotive brand with 9.76% linear impressions share of voice, a measurement of how much attention their brand received relative to others in the market. Hyundai was the most-seen auto brand on streaming TV with an 11.6% impressions share of voice, and ranked second in linear impressions, the iSpot analysis said.
A Subaru commercial, "Consumer Reports 2025 Most Reliable Automotive Brand," was the most-seen linear auto ad with a 0.98% impressions share of voice. Land Rover’s “Lost Ball” was the most-seen auto ad on streaming services with a 1.51% impressions share of voice.
iSpot also ranked brands via a metric called Top-2-Box Purchase Intent, or the proportion of viewers expressing increased likelihood to visit or purchase right after seeing the ad. Leading the category was a Cadillac ad, “Nights Like These: OPTIQ,” with 70% purchase intent, followed by the Acura ADX’s “Match Your Energy” at 67% and the Infiniti QX60’s “Highlights” at 66%.
Automakers continued to prioritize sports for messaging would-be buyers, led by the NFL with a 70.69% share of auto intenders reached, iSpot said. College football was second at 52.56%, followed by Major League Baseball (48.06%), men’s college basketball (45.86%) and the NBA (39.69%).
Among non-sports programming, the biggest share of auto intenders reached was achieved by “60 Minutes,” in seventh place at 32.86%, followed by “ABC World News Tonight” (30.42%) and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” at 29.82%.
