Digital

Amazon said this season Thursday Night Football sponsors will be able to send different creative messages to different targeted audience groups within the same 30-second commercial position. For example, an automaker could send a sports car spot to younger viewers, an SUV ad to sports and outdoors enthusiasts, and a more general brand spot to the remaining viewers.

On Monday, Amazon announced the launch of Fire TV Channels, a free live TV service that will work similar to Pluto TV and The Roku Channel. This service will launch in the summer of 2023 and will offer 400 live channels. Amazon already has free content on the Fire TV in the free content section. Starting this summer, this new Fire TV Channels destination will roll out to Fire TV devices putting over 400 live channels in a single place on the Fire TV home screen.

Ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson is seen on newly revealed video bashing the network’s streaming service, which he produced a bevy of content for during his tenure at the company.

Netflix on Monday renewed the Keri Russell-led political drama for a second season, presumably to launch in 2024. The Diplomat‘s inaugural eight-episode season bowed just 10 days ago — on April 20 — and immediately shot to No. 1 on Netflix’s consumer-facing Top 10 list, with 57.48 million hours viewed in its first weekend.

Deal covers 122 TV stations, including MyNetworkTV affiliates and four independents. The agreement also renews carriage of the company’s NewsNation cable news network.

Trying to forecast when ESPN will go entirely online is one of the great guessing games of the media industry.

New age restrictions for minors on sites like TikTok and Pornhub could also hinder adults’ access to online services.

Walmart+, the retail giant’s paid subscription membership service, is now offering access to Paramount’s Pluto TV. Interestingly, select Pluto TV programming will be available ad-free. Starting this week, Walmart+ subscribers can use the member portal to create a free Pluto account, which will allow them to watch a lineup of curated content. According to Walmart+, members can watch up to six TV shows (one season each) ad-free.

See full videos from all the sessions at TVNewsCheck’s inaugural Programming Everywhere event at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, including panels on syndication’s changing business model, fresh approaches to news content, the future of sports on broadcast TV and where FAST channels are directing the evolution of broadcasting. This content, which previously was limited to TVN premium members, is now available to all.

Vice News Tonight celebrated its 1,000th episode this past March, and now the award-winning weekly news program is being canceled. The cancellation, which will officially take place in May, comes as Vice Media Group begins layoffs within its Vice News unit.

A report from DirecTV Advertising ahead of the upfronts suggested that even sponsors who are buying connected TV continue to lean into linear addressable advertising. The DirecTV report says that in 2022, 59% of CTV buyers also bought linear addressable advertising from multichannel video programming distributors and virtual MVPDs like Sling TV and YouTube TV.

Mina Lefevre, who was head of development and programming at Meta, is leaving Facebook’s parent company. Lefevre, who was formerly EVP and head of scripted at MTV, is exiting as part of the latest round of layoffs at the Mark Zuckerberg-run company, which has seen more than 20,000 employees leave. None of the remaining FB Watch Originals, most notably Red Table Talk, are coming back for new seasons as the company is getting out of that business, shifting its focus on creating VR experiences in Meta Horizon Worlds that can also be deployed across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

Roku shares traded higher after-hours on Wednesday after the company posted a smaller-than-expected loss for its first quarter on 2023 and beat Wall Street expectations on revenue. The streamer reported revenue of $741 million Wednesday, up 1% from the same period a year ago, following a warning by company leaders that sales would be wobbly heading into 2023. Platform revenue for the quarter, which is largely based on advertising sales and a subscription revenues split with partners, was $635 million, down 1% year-over-year, while device revenue was $106 million, up 18% year over year.

Paul Cheesbrough is tapped to lead the new business unit as CEO, while Farhad Massoudi is out. A new CEO of Tubi Streaming will be announced later.

Hulu has expanded the duties for Barrie Gruner, the EVP of marketing. She will assume oversight of brand marketing, while continuing to shepherd content marketing. Gruner first joined the streamer in 2013 as a VP, originals marketing and publicity. As part of the Hulu reorganization, Scott Donaton will leave his post as SVP marketing. Donaton joined the streamer in 2019 from ad agency Digitas, where he was chief content and creative officer.

Amazon is staying in the Team Palladino business, handing a two-season, 16-episode order to a new ballet-themed series from Marvelous Mrs. Maisel auteurs Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino. Titled Étoile, the show — which features Maisel vets Luke Kirby and Gideon Glick as part of the full-time ensemble — will be set in New York City and Paris, and follow the dancers and artistic staff of two world-renowned ballet companies, as they embark on an ambitious gambit to save their storied institutions by swapping their most talented stars.

Jerrell Jimerson, Disney Streaming’s chief product officer and one of the architects of Disney+, has been let go as part of the media conglomerate’s latest round of layoffs. Jimerson on Wednesday sent a note to his team at Disney Streaming telling them that “after five incredible years at Disney, I will be leaving the company at the end of June.” Disney is laying off some 4,000 employees across the company this week, part of its previously announced target of cutting 7,000 jobs to reduce costs.

Tubi founder and CEO Farhad Massoudi is stepping down as Fox Corp. is forming the Tubi Media Group led by Paul Cheesbrough. Massoudi will remain with Tubi through a transition period until the end of June. A new CEO of Tubi Streaming will be announced at a later date.

The world’s biggest free ad-supported streaming service saw ad revenue decline for a third straight quarter, with Alphabet reporting a 2.6% year-over-year ad sales drop for YouTube in 1Q to $6.69 billion. YouTube still narrowly outperformed equity analysts forecasts of $6.6 billion. It reported a 7.8% year-over-year revenue drop in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 and a 1.9% decline in 3Q.

An unprecedented downturn in Google’s digital ad revenue – the company’s main moneymaker for more than 20 years – came into sharper focus Tuesday with the release of the January-Marcy results for its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

The company reported quarterly profit of $18.3 billion, or $2.45 per share, beating Wall Street expectations for earnings of $2.24 a share.

Comcast has natively integrated 21 FAST (free, ad-supported TV) channels into its Xfinity Stream app. Stream users now have free access to NBC News Now, Sky News and 19 Xumo-branded channels spanning comedy, crime TV, black cinema, lifestyle, reality TV, game shows, kids and more. These channels are now integrated natively into the Stream UX and are available to all Comcast subscribers, regardless of whether they pay for Xfinity TV.

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver is exiting ABC News as Disney ramps up layoff. ABC News will hold onto the FiveThirtyEight brand with plans to streamline the statistics-driven news and analysis site. The network plans to create a more efficient structure for FiveThirtyEight leading into the 2024 presidential election and beyond. Silver sent a message to his team in a company Slack channel warning that the Disney layoffs would impact FiveThirtyEight, and that Silver is not planning to return after his contract ends.