What this is
The State of Digital Signage 2026 is a first-party operational benchmark based on anonymized Kitcast screen-network telemetry 2026, supplemented by a 515-operator survey and a 1,000-device hardware-reliability study. All published figures are aggregates; no account, customer, or location identifiers appear in any table. Definitions and aggregate tables are licensed CC BY 4.0.
Data sources
| Source | What it covers | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Screen-network telemetry | Content freshness, screen activity, network size, deployment speed, content mix | First-party, observed |
| Operator survey (N=515) | AI adoption (Section 9), cost and ROI (Section 10) | Self-reported |
| Hardware-reliability study | 1,000 Apple TV + 250 Android devices, 12-month uptime window | First-party, observed |
| Third-party market data | World screen counts, market size (Berg Insight, Grand View Research, Omdia, TrendForce, IDC) | Public, context only |
Survey-sourced and public-sourced figures are tagged as such throughout the report and in the dataset (source_type column) and are never blended with telemetry.
Unit of analysis: workspace, not company
Network-size and growth metrics are measured per workspace. A single company may operate several workspaces, so true per-company screen counts are higher than the per-workspace figures reported. Expansion within a workspace counts toward the Network Expansion Rate; a company growing by adding a new workspace does not, so per-company expansion is also higher than reported. Device- and asset-level metrics (freshness, activity, recycling) are unaffected by this distinction.
Sampling frame
The deployment sample is deliberately weighted to small and mid-sized operators — the most common form of digital signage deployment — with a smaller share of larger networks alongside. Treat network-size figures as benchmarks for the small-to-mid market. A separate enterprise benchmark is in preparation.
Cohorts and suppression
Cohorts differ by metric (active accounts / paid-only / all-time) and are disclosed per metric rather than blended into a single "n". Minimum published cell size is N≥30; smaller segment cells are suppressed as low-confidence, and cells under N=5 are omitted entirely for privacy (k-anonymity).
Metric definitions
| Metric | Definition | Cohort · n |
|---|---|---|
| Content Freshness Index (CFI) | Median days since last content update — creative swap, schedule edit, asset add, or layout change | Active workspaces · 10,840 |
| Active Display Rate (ADR) | % of deployed devices with a heartbeat within the window | All-time workspaces · 42,250 devices |
| Forgotten Screens Rate (FSR) | % of active screens in networks with no admin login for 90+ days while still playing scheduled content | Active workspaces · 27,800 devices |
| Network Expansion Rate (NER) | % of eligible workspaces that grew screen count by ≥1 within 12 months (201 of 9,830) | All-time accounts · 9,830 |
| Time to First Screen (TFS) | Median elapsed time from account creation to first live playback; V1-migrated accounts excluded | All-time accounts · 4,820 |
| Network size (IMNS) | Screens per paid workspace: median, mean, percentiles | Paid workspaces · 10,520 |
| Content Asset Recycling (CARR) | % of currently scheduled creative assets uploaded more than 1 year ago; per-industry asset counts withheld | Scheduled assets · 8.8M |
| Active Editor Rate (AER) | % of workspaces where ≥1 member edited content in the last 30 days; automated rotations excluded | Active workspaces · 10,840 |
Hardware-reliability study design
Sample: 1,000 Apple TV and 250 Android devices over a 12-month window. Unequal samples are disclosed, not downsampled — keeping the full Apple TV set gives more precision, and n is reported per group. An offline event is a heartbeat gap longer than 60 minutes; events longer than 24 hours are tracked separately. Replacement rates were observed on 250 devices per platform (Android: 29% replaced over 1.6 years; Apple TV: 6% over 3 years — approximately 18% vs 2% annualized). Android devices in the sample are low-cost players priced $20–$150, most under $100. Both datasets are real telemetry, not modeled. The wider report dataset is predominantly Apple TV.
Survey design
515 digital signage operators, self-reported, surveyed in 2026. AI questions n=506; the AI-barrier question n=374 (operators not currently using AI). The ROI-measurement question was multi-select. Cross-cut cells under n=30 are suppressed. Survey findings (Sections 9–10) are reported separately from telemetry and tagged source_type: survey.
Third-party sources
World-screens and market figures are third-party estimates cited for context, never re-presented as Kitcast findings: Berg Insight (connected signage installed base and shipments), Grand View Research (market size), Omdia, Digital TV Research, TrendForce and IDC (TVs and monitors). The total-screens estimate of ~3.6 billion carries a disclosed range of 3.2–4.3B.
Kitcast. State of Digital Signage 2026. KITCAST-DSR-2026-V1. Data downloads: CSV · JSON. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20672735.