ABC Owned Television Stations is expanding its true-crime and Unsolved offerings to release on Hulu on Dec. 21. True-crime followers can stream some of the popular local stories on Hulu that were investigated and […]
Signaling a crackdown on data practices, the Federal Trade Commission has taken the first steps toward crafting new privacy regulations. The agency quietly said in a recent regulatory filing that it was considering “initiating a rulemaking under section 18 of the FTC Act to curb lax security practices, limit privacy abuses, and ensure that algorithmic decision-making does not result in unlawful discrimination.” The filing said the FTC was at the “prerule” stage, and indicated that the next step in the rulemaking process would occur in February.
The once-dominant Internet Association “has made the difficult decision to close the organization at the end of this year,” its board announced Wednesday. The organization offered no specific reason for its decision to disband, but the group has struggled with financial woes after Microsoft pulled its support earlier this year, and it has fought to maintain relevance on Capitol Hill despite being torn by competing pressures from its huge and smaller member companies on issues like antitrust.
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Ad-supported streaming service Tubi should reach $700 million in revenue next year, according to a UBS analysis. That’s nearly five times the $145 million in revenue the service reported when Fox Corp. acquired it for $440 million in March 2020.
Measurement and analytics company iSpot, one of the top challengers to Nielsen, said it signed a licensing deal with LG Ads Solutions that gives iSpot access to program and ad data from more than 20 million smart TVs.
Sandra Bullock is back on Netflix, and this time, it isn’t blindfolded in a post-apocalyptic horror (a la 2018’s Bird Box). Her latest feature flick on the streamer, The Unforgivable, directed by Nora Fingscheidt, debuted at No. 1 globally on Dec. 10 and generated 85.86 million hours of subscriber viewership.
Four of the biggest ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) platforms in the U.S. generated $3.5 billion in advertising revenue in the 12 months leading up to September 2021. That’s according to new data from Kantar, which said that Hulu accounted for most of the ad sales over the period with $2.1 billion, followed by Paramount+ at $822 million, Peacock with $279 million and Tubi with $250 million.
Vox Media has inked a deal to acquire Group Nine, a leading collection of multiplatform media brands including The Dodo, NowThis, PopSugar, Thrillist and Seeker. The portfolio will join Vox Media brands including SB Nation, New York Magazine, The Verge, Vox, Eater, The Cut, Vulture, Polygon and The Strategist, along with its rapidly growing podcast and studios business, and diversified revenue model across advertising, content distribution, commerce and subscriptions.
While advertisers and agencies can not by themselves eliminate dangerous and destructive content online, they do have a role to play as they also work to avoid misspending money and inviting regulations that could hurt business, GroupM said in a new report on brand safety.
YouTube TV’s carriage deal with The Walt Disney Co. expires Friday, and YouTube TV says that if a blackout occurs, it will give subscribers a $15 price cut while content such as Grey’s Anatomy and SportsCenter is unavailable. Disney began warning YouTube TV subscribers of a potential blackout Monday.
Veteran anchor Chris Wallace signed off his Fox News Sunday show after 18 years to join CNN’s new streaming service, dealing a blow to Fox’s news operation at a time when its opinion side has become preeminent. Wallace said he’s “ready for a new adventure.”
As more people stream their television programming, the use of ad-supported video has surpassed the use of the higher profile subscription video services.
From Amazon’s successful expansion of Wheel of Time beyond just fantasy book readers to ViacomCBS’s explosive expansion of its Yellowstone audience through multiplatform exposure, a new Fandom report examines the new rules and best practices for marketing to hardcore enthusiasts.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has called on Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan to immediately launch an investigation of “recent revelations and public documentation” that it had misled advertisers and the public in making claims about the “brand safety” and reach of its ads, which she said would violate the FTC’s prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices.
Following suit of its rivals, streamer Peacock said Thursday that most feature films from sister company Universal Filmed Entertainment Group could debut exclusively on Peacock as early as 45 days after their theatrical release. The big caveat: event pics including next year’s Jurassic World and Minions installments, or Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film, aren’t expected to be part of the 45-day crew.
It’s another case of the streaming wars making strange bedfellows: Comcast announced that starting today, Google’s YouTube TV is now available on Xfinity Flex, the cable giant’s video platform for broadband-only customers.
More than 200 newspapers are suing Facebook and Google, alleging that the tech titans have unfairly manipulated the advertising market, siphoning away their revenue and crippling their businesses. The lawsuits are being filed on behalf of some 30 different companies.
Lawmakers of both parties came out swinging in a hearing on Wednesday with Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, expressing deep skepticism and anger toward the company for not doing enough to protect young users.
As Discovery is poised to conclude a transformational merger with WarnerMedia by the middle of next year, it’s Zaslav’s job to make sure that company, Warner Bros. Discovery, will be well positioned to evolve and thrive amid a torrent of market disruption. Zaslav speaks about the business challenges ahead for the enlarged entity that he will lead as CEO, assuming the $43 billion merger secures regulatory approval.
