Atlanta's 48% Streaming Shift Changes Everything

The Market That Moved First

Atlanta’s legal advertising market doesn’t look like any other in the country. Of the $12.9 million spent monthly on legal advertising in the Atlanta DMA, 48% goes to streaming platforms. That isn’t a typo, and it isn’t a rounding error. Nearly half of all legal ad dollars in Atlanta flow through connected TV.

For context, the national average for CTV adoption in legal advertising sits between 15% and 25% across most markets. Washington DC runs at 3%. Boston at 9%. Dallas at 10%. New York at 11%. Atlanta is not ahead of the curve. Atlanta is the curve.

This article breaks down how 151 tracked advertisers in the Atlanta DMA allocate their budgets, which firms are driving the streaming shift, and what the data tells us about where other markets are headed.

The Numbers: $6.1 Million Monthly on Streaming

Atlanta’s $12.9 million monthly legal ad market splits across four channels.

Channel	Monthly Spend	Share	Ad Instances
Streaming Video	$6.1M	47.6%	1,779
Broadcast Television	$4.0M	30.8%	23,682
Radio	$2.5M	19.3%	40,442
Cable	$282K	2.2%	1,843

The instance counts tell their own story. Radio generates the highest volume of individual placements at 40,442, but captures only 19.3% of spend. Streaming generates just 1,779 instances while commanding 47.6% of dollars. Each streaming placement costs significantly more than a radio spot, but delivers targeted household-level CTV reach instead of broad demographic exposure.

Broadcast television is the middle ground at $4 million monthly. It still delivers mass reach, especially among older demographics. But in Atlanta, broadcast is no longer the primary channel. Streaming is.

The 118% Growth Story

Atlanta’s legal ad market grew 118% compared to the prior tracking period. Monthly spend jumped from $5.9 million to $12.9 million.

That kind of growth doesn’t come from existing advertisers incrementally increasing budgets. It comes from new money entering the market and existing players significantly expanding their spend. Understanding what CTV actually costs explains why the dollar figure rises even when household reach stays comparable. The growth also reflects the economics of CTV. Streaming inventory is more expensive per impression than broadcast, so as firms shift budgets toward CTV, the total dollar figure rises even if the total number of households reached stays comparable.

This pattern aligns with national trends. AdImpact reports that CTV spend in the legal category grew 241% between Q1 2023 and Q4 2025, with top firms doubling their CTV investment over a 12-month period. Atlanta is simply further along that trajectory than other markets.

How the Top 10 Allocate Their Budgets

The most revealing data is at the firm level. Here is how Atlanta’s top 10 legal advertisers split their budgets across channels.

Rank	Firm	Monthly Spend	Streaming %	TV %	Radio %
1	Morgan and Morgan	$2.24M	36.7%	50.1%	13.2%
2	Montlick Injury Attorneys	$2.11M	54.5%	40.9%	4.6%
3	Thompson Law	$1.40M	68.7%	31.3%	0%
4	Gary Martin Hays	$1.40M	50.8%	40.2%	8.9%
5	Kenneth S. Nugent	$1.29M	60.0%	21.0%	19.1%
6	John Foy & Associates	$953K	61.5%	19.7%	18.8%
7	Dennis Law Firm	$651K	74.6%	21.5%	3.9%
8	Dozier Law Firm	$414K	81.3%	18.7%	0%
9	Julian Lewis Sanders	$324K	0%	0%	100%
10	My 25% Lawyer	$220K	0%	0%	100%

Seven of the top 10 advertisers allocate more than 50% of their budgets to streaming. That is not incremental adoption. That is a structural shift in how legal advertising operates in this market. The full Atlanta legal advertising guide maps every firm’s strategy in detail.

Three Distinct Strategies

The data reveals three competing approaches in the Atlanta market.

The streaming leaders. Dozier Law Firm runs 81.3% streaming. Dennis Law Firm runs 74.6%. Thompson Law at 68.7%. These firms have committed to CTV as their primary channel. They accept higher CPMs in exchange for household-level targeting and 90%+ completion rates. Their broadcast presence exists as a supplement, not a foundation.

Balanced allocators. Montlick, Gary Martin Hays, Kenneth Nugent, and John Foy all split their budgets roughly 50/50 or 60/40 in favor of streaming. They maintain meaningful broadcast presence for mass reach while building CTV as their growth channel. This is the strategy most large firms in other markets will likely adopt over the next two to three years.

Traditional holdouts. Julian Lewis Sanders and My 25% Lawyer run 100% radio. No television. No streaming. This is a viable strategy in a $2.5 million radio market, especially for firms targeting audiences during drive time. But it leaves them completely absent from the channel that now captures the plurality of market spend.

Morgan and Morgan sits between the first two groups. At 36.7% streaming, they are the least CTV-forward among the major spenders. That reflects their national strategy of broadcast-heavy brand building. In Atlanta specifically, Morgan’s $822,000 monthly streaming spend is significant in absolute terms, but as a percentage of their budget, they trail most of their local competitors on CTV adoption.

Thompson Law: The CTV-First Playbook

Thompson Law’s Atlanta numbers deserve closer examination. They spend $1.4 million monthly with 68.7% going to streaming and 31.3% to broadcast television. Zero radio.

That means roughly $962,000 per month flows through streaming platforms. The remaining $438,000 goes to broadcast TV. No cable. No radio. This is the cleanest CTV-first strategy among major Atlanta advertisers.

Thompson Law is not a small firm testing the waters. They are the third-largest advertiser in the Atlanta DMA, spending more than Kenneth Nugent, John Foy, and Dennis Law Firm. Their budget is large enough that the streaming-first approach is not a necessity born from limited funds. It is a strategic choice.

The implication for other markets is straightforward. If a firm spending $1.4 million monthly in the seventh-largest DMA in the country can run nearly 70% streaming, the argument that CTV is only for supplemental campaigns or smaller budgets does not hold.

Why Atlanta Is Different

Several factors explain Atlanta’s position as the national leader in legal CTV adoption.

Demographics. Atlanta’s population skews younger than traditional legal advertising strongholds in the Northeast. Younger audiences are more likely to stream and less likely to watch broadcast television. Firms that want to reach adults 25 to 44 in Atlanta need to be on streaming platforms.

Market growth. The 118% spending growth means new money is entering the market. New advertisers, unburdened by decades of broadcast buying relationships, are more willing to start with CTV. Legacy budget allocation is the single biggest barrier to CTV adoption, and fast-growing markets have less of it.

Competitive pressure. When multiple firms in a market commit to streaming, others follow. Atlanta reached a tipping point where CTV is no longer experimental. It is table stakes for serious competitors. The firms running 0% streaming in Atlanta are not making a strategic choice to avoid CTV. They are running specialized radio-only operations.

The Streaming Gap Across 30 Markets

Atlanta’s 48% CTV allocation sits at one extreme. Here is how it compares to other major markets.

Market	CTV %	Monthly Spend	Context
Atlanta	48%	$12.9M	The leader
Los Angeles	33%	$22.5M	Second highest, largest market
Las Vegas	33%	$4.5M	High adoption, smaller market
Seattle	27%	$2.6M	Growing fast, fragmented
Spokane	25%	$1.0M	Highest among small markets
Tampa	22%	$5.5M	Morgan dominant
Chicago	20%	$7.3M	Below potential
Houston	18%	$7.2M	Radio heavy (34%)
San Francisco	12%	$4.7M	Tech capital paradox
New York	11%	$14.5M	Below potential
Dallas	10%	$6.9M	Thomas J. Henry territory
Boston	9%	$3.2M	Morgan’s Northeast stronghold
Washington DC	3%	$2.6M	73% broadcast

The markets with the lowest CTV adoption are not small or unsophisticated. They are New York, Dallas, Boston, and Washington DC. These markets have the largest broadcast infrastructure, the deepest agency relationships, and the most entrenched buying patterns. That is exactly why their CTV inventory remains comparatively available.

What Other Markets Can Learn

Atlanta’s data offers three lessons for firms in lower-adoption markets.

The shift is not coming. It already happened. In the nation’s seventh-largest DMA, streaming now captures more legal ad dollars than broadcast television. The question for other markets isn’t whether this transition will occur, but how quickly.

CTV-first strategies work at scale. Thompson Law, Dozier, and Dennis Law Firm prove that streaming-first budgets are not a niche approach. These are firms spending $400,000 to $1.4 million monthly with the majority on CTV. The results justify the allocation.

Early movers in low-adoption markets have an advantage. Markets like Dallas (10% CTV), Boston (9%), and Washington DC (3%) have premium streaming inventory available at competitive rates because most legal advertisers have not arrived yet. The firm that establishes CTV presence in these markets now will not face the same competitive pressure that Atlanta firms face at 48%.

Nationally, CTV impressions for legal services hit 3.53% of total local CTV impressions in Q4 2025, the highest quarter on record. Legal advertisers are growing their CTV footprint across the country. Atlanta just shows where that trajectory ends.

References

Atlanta allocates 48% of its $12.9M monthly legal advertising spend to streaming platforms, the highest CTV adoption rate among all 210 tracked US markets. Among the top 10 Atlanta advertisers, seven allocate more than 50% of their budgets to streaming. Thompson Law leads at 69%.