Business

YouTube made an update Monday in relation to third-party ad-blocking apps, which may make it more difficult for users to watch YouTube videos without paying for the company’s ad-free tier. Specifically, viewers using these third-party apps to access YouTube may begin experiencing “buffering issues” or be met with an error message stating that “the following content is not available on this app.”

Wall Street slumped Monday as rising yields cranked up the pressure.

Massive levels of linear TV programming on CTV platforms (connected TV) have resulted by making up around 85% of total CTV ad inventory for long-form content, according to Bernstein Research. The stock research firm expects CTV ad inventory to end up growing 3% in the first quarter of this year, with linear inventory sinking 6% year-over-year.

The study will explore innovations in measurement, currency, data and metrics across the local TV and video marketplace.

The flow of traffic to Donald Trump’s most loyal digital-media boosters isn’t just slowing; it’s utterly collapsing.

Wall Street titan Mario Gabelli is slamming a possible merger between Paramount and Skydance Media — and says he’d rather see Paramount exit deal talks altogether. The legendary investor — whose firm through super voting shares and common Paramount stock is the second leading voting shareholder next to media heiress Shari Redstone — added in an interview with the New York Post that he’s also against a sale of Paramount to Apollo Global Management, which has offered $26 billion. (Scott Mlyn/CNBC)

J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley started coverage on Reddit with equivalent to “hold” ratings, as they wait for clarity on the social media company’s user growth, while staying bullish on ad-revenue growth and artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. Shares of Reddit were up 0.88% at $42.64 in premarket trading. While Reddit, which made its market debut last month, still relies on advertising for the vast majority of its revenue, it touted AI in its initial public offering marketing roadshow as an area of growth.

Dan Lin, the streaming service’s new film chief, wants to produce a more varied slate of movies to better appeal to the array of interests among subscribers.

Brands want to measure ads everywhere, but media companies keep making it harder.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include an opening for an account executive – trainee/new business development and existing jobs include 13 openings in news, sales, digital and engineering.

Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, spoke about his bid to acquire Paramount Global at NAB Show April 14. Allen called Paramount Global “a phenomenal company” and a healthy one at that. Allen was interviewed on a panel titled “Thriving in a New Television Syndication Paradigm” by Kathy Haley, publisher of TVNewsCheck. Allen said he would pursue a streaming merger with the likes of NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery if he were to acquire Paramount. “I think there will be a shakeout; I think there will be some merging,” he said of the various streamers. (Michael Malone)

Wall Street fell sharply Friday to close out its worst week since October. JPMorgan Chase was one of the heaviest weights on the market and sank 6.5% despite reporting stronger profit for the first three months of the year than analysts expected. The nation’s largest bank gave a forecast for a key source of income this year that fell below Wall Street’s estimate, calling for only modest growth.

Krishan Bhatia, formerly a senior ad sales executive at NBCUniversal, has been hired as vice president of global video advertising at Amazon. Bhatia will oversee Amazon’s TV advertising business including live sports, Amazon Freevee, Twitch, Prime Video Ads and third-party publishers. He will report to Alan Moss, Amazon’s global ad sales VP.

Following a data breach earlier this year affecting 15,000 user accounts, Roku has revealed a much larger security episode. In a blog post Friday, the streaming giant said 576,000 user accounts had been affected in the second breach. Roku noted that its investigation had found that it was not responsible for the breach, which it said occurred via third-party websites. The company, which has more than 80 million active accounts, said its systems were not compromised.

Local television station owners including Gray Television, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television, Tegna and the E.W. Scripps Co. have invested in the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority, whose Run3TV platform can provide detailed data about over-the-air broadcast viewership. Run3TV also creates apps that provide NextGen-enabled TV sets that give viewers additional features and programming.

After nearly nine years, Showtime’s streaming apps are fading to black. The Showtime standalone service will be shut down on April 30, according to notices sent to subscribers. The end of Showtime’s streaming apps comes just less than a year after parent company Paramount Global integrated Showtime’s programming into the top-tier Paramount+ plan.

Radical steps are required if media companies want to achieve financial and strategic success, according to a new report from Accenture. Accenture unveiled its Media Thrive Index, which shows that modest changes won’t move the needle addressing the industry’s challenges. Media companies need to take big swings if they want to thrive, the report found.

Wall Street rebounded Thursday following its slide as Big Tech takes the reins again. It’s a return to last year’s form, when a handful of Big Tech stocks was responsible for the majority of the market’s gains.

Approaching spring shopping trends, YouTube is unveiling new in-stream shopping tools in an effort to facilitate new ways for creators to show off products, push more purchase activity, and gain more revenue opportunities in the video-sharing app. YouTube says its new “Shopping Collections” feature provides creators with a thematic way to curate products from their favorite brands. The feature — which is intended to highlight a creator’s tastes in a similar way to a Pinterest board — may enhance the possibility for more direct promotions, helping creators earn more revenue on the site.

The awards, which recognize outstanding service to their communities by local television and radio stations, will be presented at a ceremony on June 4 at The Anthem in Washington, D.C.

Shares of Paramount Global were down as much as 7% Wednesday as several directors are leaving the company’s board and talks with Skydance continue.

In a letter to the FCC, former Democratic FCC Commissioner Ervin Duggan and conservative commentator William Kristol, explain why they think defense of Rupert Murdoch and son Lachlan by Pennsylvania’s two Democratic senators is wrong.