TV convergence has largely been framed as a national conversation: advertisers looking for more connected ways to plan across linear and streaming, measure performance, and understand audiences. But as buyers push for more accountable, performance-oriented TV campaigns, that national-first approach starts to lose precision in local markets.
“Any purchase decision is happening locally,” said Keith Kazerman, President of Streaming at Locality. “Whether it’s happening in a neighborhood store or on a second screen in someone’s living room, consumer behavior is inherently local.”
Local markets differ enough — in audience, viewing habits, competitive dynamics and media consumption — that treating them uniformly leaves value on the table. Realizing that value, though, depends on having the infrastructure to act on market-level differences.
National infrastructure wasn’t built for local TV
Much of the industry’s convergence infrastructure was built from the top down. Household identity graphs and audience models were largely designed for national buying — overlooking local complexities: Local transacts market by market, each with its own mix of broadcasters, streaming consumption, audience behavior and cultural nuances.
“The industry did an incredible job creating connections across content, supply and measurement nationally,” Kazerman said. “But local media is purchased and optimized differently. It needs an approach purpose-built around how local actually works.”
As advertisers move from national planning into individual markets, national-first approaches lose precision. Match rates decline, audience signals become less reliable and coordinating campaigns across broadcast and streaming becomes more difficult. Advertisers struggle to understand true incremental reach, manage frequency across platforms, or optimize media mix at the market level.
Broadcast and streaming have different jobs to do — even at the local level
For years, local advertising often functioned as an extension of a national media plan. But if consumer behavior differs market by market, media planning should as well. That includes understanding the distinct role each medium plays. Broadcast and streaming aren’t interchangeable at the local level, and broadcast’s value starts with the fact that it was built around the market itself.
“Local broadcast was the original geotargeting before geotargeting was a thing,” said Ann Hailer, President of Broadcast at Locality. “It’s local by design.”
Streaming adds a layer of audience precision, deeper targeting, and incremental reach. The two become more valuable when coordinated around how audiences consume media within a specific market.
This coordination starts with understanding how individual markets work. The strongest broadcaster in Detroit may not lead in Chicago; streaming usage, sports loyalties, weather, competitive dynamics and viewing habits all vary by DMA. That’s why the right media mix must be shaped market by market, based on where ads will have the greatest impact.
“The challenge has never been whether marketers wanted to go local. It’s been making it practical,” Hailer said. “Why wouldn’t you want to optimize locally if you could do so easily?”
Local data is making convergence possible
Making convergence work at the local level requires audience data robust enough to reflect how individual markets actually work. Locality’s approach, Kazerman explains, is drawing on billions of return-path signals, automatic content recognition (ACR) data and campaign intelligence generated across thousands of local campaigns to build audience models designed specifically around how media is consumed across broadcast and streaming within local markets.
These local signals enable advertisers to make fundamentally different planning decisions. Instead of treating local media as a reach extension for national campaigns, advertisers can optimize market by market, adjusting media mix across broadcast and streaming, managing frequency more effectively, sequencing messaging across platforms and identifying opportunities for incremental reach that national planning alone may miss.
“We believe that local is shifting from an extension of a national strategy to become a true, data-driven performance engine,” Kazerman said.
Local’s place in every media plan
Going local is not reserved only for small or medium-sized businesses. Global brands are also tapping into the value of local advertising. During the 2025 Super Bowl, Google replaced a single national creative execution with 50 local ads, each spotlighting a small business or nonprofit in a different state — demonstrating that local relevance can create a more meaningful connection with audiences.
The opportunity now is to bring that same market-level thinking to everyday media planning.
“There will always be national campaigns,” Hailer said. “But if advertisers can take even a portion of those campaigns and optimize them around local opportunity markets, local audiences and the right mix of broadcast and streaming, they can create value that simply isn’t possible with a one-size-fits-all approach.”
The next phase of TV convergence is about making it practical for advertisers to identify local opportunities, activate the right mix of broadcast and streaming, and measure performance market by market. With the right local intelligence, advertisers can make smarter decisions about how broadcast and streaming work together in every market — turning local optimization into the new standard for how converged media is planned.
