advertising

CBS and Fox weighed in on their upfronts today, following NBC last week. CBS has closed its 2024 selling season up “low-to-mid single digits” in dollar commitments. Fox Corp. showed gains in news and is looking at a fall slate of sports, animated and unsripted content. Both companies, along with the rest of the television industry, have been in unusually protracted negotiations amid unprecedented Hollywood labor action and a problematic ad market.

The streamer asks for patience as it tries to jump-start its $6.99 a month ad tier.

Ad-tech company PubMatic has launched Convert, a self-service advertising platform for commerce media. Convert is built on PubMatic’s global cloud infrastructure and was created for commerce media networks and their advertising clients. It enables onsite and offsite monetization through listing ads and connected TV. IPG MediaBrand, Coles 360, Lyft Media, MiQ and Wallapop helped develop the platform.

Kia will advertise on Telly, whose free 55-inch televisions come with an attached second screen to show ads and other content.

If Twitter’s ad revenue is off an average of 50%, as Elon Musk disclosed earlier this week, then it’s coming mainly from the platforms biggest advertisers. Ad spending across Twitter’s top 10 ad categories are down an average 71% through the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period a year ago, according to estimates released today by ad tracking service MediaRadar.

Many ads are easier to make with the fast-improving technology. It also poses a threat to an industry already in flux. Pictured: A Virgin Voyages campaign using artificial intelligence allowed users to prompt a digital avatar of Jennifer Lopez to issue tens of thousands of customized video invitations to a cruise.

Traditional TV is dying. Ad revenue is soft. Streaming isn’t profitable. And Hollywood is practically shut down as the actors and writers unions settle in for what is shaping up to be a long and bitter work stoppage. All of this turmoil will be on investors’ minds as the media industry kicks off its earnings season this week, with Netflix up first on Wednesday.

In its First Half TV Transparency Report, measurement and analytics company iSpot points out viewing trends that illustrate the changes and challenges facing the industry. It says that linear TV ad impressions grew by 5% to 4.21 trillion in the first half of 2023 while at the same time, national TV ad spend dropped by 7.4% to $21.6 billion.

Roku has partnered with Shopify to allow Roku streaming device users to purchase products from Shopify merchants directly from their TV screens, via Roku Action Ads. This is the first commerce integration for independent Shopify merchants on TV streaming, and an extension of the two companies’ existing commerce relationship.

The veteran exec has held that spot since 1997 and has been at the station group since 1991.

Automotive national TV spending declined 18.1% in June despite big sports buys, according to iSpot.tv. The estimated national TV spending by automakers was $128.7 million, compared to $157.2 million in June 2022. Impressions for the month rose 7% to 27.9 billion, up from 26.1 billion in June 2022. The top five brands by estimate national TV ad spend were Lexus ($12.8 million), Kia ($12.7 million), Chevrolet ($11.7 million), Toyota ($10.6 million) and Nissan ($8.9 million).

To collect ad dollars this year, the nation’s big TV networks did something they rarely do. They held a fire sale. U.S. media companies have largely closed out their “upfront” ad-sales process, according to four executives familiar with recent negotiations, and are likely to see a decline in volume for the first time since the 2020 coronavirus pandemic — and just the second since 2015. These executives said the volume of advertising commitments the networks were able to secure fell in nearly all areas, except sports. And to get there, the networks had to cut their rates.

Given the TV ad slowdown so far this year, as well as some content reductions, Disney/Comcast-owned Hulu is projected to see a 10% decline to $3.12 billion this year vs. 2022, according to new estimates from MoffettNathanson Research. However, the analysts project Hulu’s ad business will 5% rise to $3.27 billion next year, and another 5% to $3.44 billion in 2025.

As the advertising industry rounds into the back half of the year, Adweek spoke with a dozen revenue executives at premium publishers to get a sense of the next six months. Despite cautious optimism, few of them expect a substantial turnaround.

Advertising — specifically television, cable, broadcast, CTV, radio, and print — is being quietly reshaped by AI. The most interesting thing about this transformation is that it’s not just about technology; it’s about people, local businesses, and communities. The high costs and logistical complexity involved in advertising on channels like television have, until recently, made them unattainable for small businesses. AI has quietly stepped in to rewrite this narrative — in a very significant way. 

Netflix, Disney and now, perhaps, Amazon: More streamers are getting into the advertising game and more viewers are signing on.

On Wednesday, the Canadian government announced that it will cease all ad spending — about $7.5 million per year — on Facebook and Instagram. The decision comes after Meta and Google blocked Canadian news in opposition to a law requiring technology platforms to compensate publishers for linking to their content.

They say the collaboration will make data-driven TV advertising possible and drive enhanced advertising outcomes for agencies and brands.

A string of uncanny videos show what generative A.I. and advertising have in common: They chew up the cultural subconscious and spit it back at us.

The U.S. Ad Market Tracker rose 2.5% in May, the first expansion in 11 months. The expansion compares with the year-ago period that was only up modestly and is the best May since Standard Media Index began tracking it. The growth is the first material sign that the U.S. ad marketplace is pulling out of a recession that began in July 2022, based on the SMI data, which is derived from a pool of actual ad spending processed by the major agency holding companies and independent media services agencies.

The language-learning app now relies more on memes — helping it climb to 20 million daily active users.

Morgan Murphy Nedua is rolling out Waymark IP across all its TV and radio stations nationally after a pilot program, allowing the creation of AI-generated ads in minutes.

The country’s largest newspaper chain said that Google’s power over ad technology has contributed to the decline of local news.

Group Black will exclusively work with NBCUniversal to scale and sell ads within Black-led content including Black-led comedies, cinema and dramas.

IPG Mediabrands’ Magna on Monday became the latest of the big agency holding company forecasting units to revise its 2023 advertising growth outlook downward, albeit slightly, for both the U.S. and worldwide. Magna revised its U.S. growth forecast down nearly a percentage point to 2.5%, from the 3.4% it had been estimating when it released its last quarter update for the U.S. in March.

The current programmatic media ecosystem is “rife with waste” to the tune of $13 billion and maybe as much $20 billion according to a new study by the Association of National Advertisers. The organization issued what it called a “first look” Monday of a more in-depth study that will be issued later this year. And the report lays much of the blame for inefficiencies in the programmatic arena on the advertisers that use it, saying that they too often put cost ahead of value and more generally fail to exercise proper stewardship over investments in the space.

In partnership with FreeWheel, globally minded marketers now have access to global-to-local content from more than 190 countries spanning Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.

VideoAmp is tapped to be AMG’s primary and preferred currency provider.

NBCUniversal, Roku, TikTok and TalkShopLive on Thursday shared campaigns and results from partnerships built based on the big-box retailer’s partner program. Walmart Connect Partner Lab partnered with NBCUniversal to test a closed-loop media-powered ads for retail in live sports streaming. This will mark the first time that NBCUniversal’s live sports streaming inventory becomes available through a retail media network.

European Union regulators filed new antitrust charges against Google, which could lead to fines and orders for the company to change its business practices.

TVision has created a partnership with DoubleVerify in an effort to offer marketers advertising attention data attached to ad exposure and viewable data for connected TV (CTV) commercials. TVision’s technology will measure eyes-on-the-screen data for advertising attention, while Double Verify’s advertising exposure CTV data will offer specific granular performance on CTV,  beyond general viewership. Double Verify is a platform for digital media measurement and analytics.

CoxReps and Gamut are being combined to form Locality, a new company offering local advertising on both broadcasting and streaming. Presidents Ann Hailer and Keith Kazerman report to Locality Executive Chairman Mark Rosenthal.

Nexstar has spent the past two years building its national media business with The CW as a central part of that strategy. The CW will soon be put to the test as its third iteration hits viewers.