Business

Wall Street rallied Wednesday set to records after inflation slows.

The Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) is challenging a new Nielsen tabulation aggregating total TV viewing across both linear and nonlinear viewing sources, because it includes some non-ad-supported viewing. The new analysis, which Nielsen released Tuesday, showed Disney has the biggest share of aggregate cross-platform audiences, followed by YouTube. TVB President Steve Lanzano said the analysis “misleads marketers into thinking their commercials can reach significantly more streaming viewers than is possible or the reality.”

Warner Bros. Discovery announced new advanced advertising products marketers can buy on its Max streaming service during its upfront presentation Wednesday that include shoppable ads, advanced contextual targeting and interactive video formats.

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After corporate maneuvers, a global pandemic and labor unrest, the wheels of streaming commerce are finally starting to turn for Max. The Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service introduced an ad tier in 2021, when it was known as HBO Max and owned by AT&T’s WarnerMedia, only to re-approach the ad business in earnest in early 2023. About a year into the effort and the rebrand to Max, there are clear signs of traction, with the service due to be center stage Wednesday at the company’s upfront presentation to ad buyers in New York.

On April 23, the U.S. Department of Labor published final regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act that ultimately raise the minimum salary necessary to be exempt from federal overtime rules by 65%. These changes affect all businesses subject to the FLSA, but broadcasters and other media employers may particularly feel the impact given that they rarely operate on a 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. schedule. The increase will occur in two steps, with the first going into effect on July 1, 2024, and the second occurring on Jan. 1, 2025.

Billionaire Frank McCourt is organizing a bid to acquire the U.S. business of video-sharing platform TikTok, weeks after the passage of a law that would ban the company unless it separates itself from its Chinese owner.

The Walt Disney Co.’s upfront presentation went on with a connections theme, and Bob Iger himself appeared onstage moments after it began. Emma Stone introduced Iger, Disney CEO, who said it was his first upfront show appearance since 1994. Among the programming highlights presented were three from Ryan Murphy, a comedy special franchise on Hulu and a peek at Marvel projects.

Wall Street ended higher on Tuesday, sending the Nasdaq to a record high.

The turmoil in TV and advertising has been reflected in a high level of turnover among top TV ad sales executives, so media buyers will be doing business with a number of new faces in this year’s upfront advertising sales market.

Despite strikes that wiped out original programming last season and a narrative about viewers streaming more and watching less linear TV, the big broadcast networks largest retained their reach, according to a report from measurement and analytics company iSpot.tv.

Nielsen released a new ranking of companies in the media distribution business, including broadcast, cable and streaming, and The Walt Disney Co. was at the top of that list. At a time when it appears that streaming is taking over the television business, the new ranking has YouTube as No. 2 followed by traditional media companies NBCUniversal, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Among the headlines were Shakira announcing that her song Punteria will be the official song of TelevisaUnivison’s coverage of the 2024 Copa America soccer tournament. Univision also announced the creation of “Sistema Uforia,” offering advertisers a way to take advantage of all of Univison’s Latin music assets and new festivals tied to some of its award shows.

As streamer bundling accelerates, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said today the  company will introduce a combo of Peacock , Netflix and Apple TV+ this month “at a vastly reduced price to anything that is in the market now.”

Lionsgate Studios began trading as a single class of stock under the Nasdaq ticker symbol LION on Tuesday. This news comes as the company continues its split from the premium cable network Starz. Lionsgate Studios encompasses both Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group and the Television Studio segment as well as the company’s 20,000-plus title film and television library. This transaction is a major step in Lionsgate’s plan to fully separate its studio and Starz businesses. Lionsgate Studios currently has an enterprise value of $4.6 billion.

Marketers expect economic uncertainty, making the tenor of advertising deals difficult to predict — much like last year.

Tokyo-based Sony Corp.’s quarterly profit totaled 189 billion yen ($1.2 billion), up from 141 billion yen the year before. Quarterly sales for the maker of the PlayStation game machines rose 14% to 3.48 trillion yen ($22 billion).

Broadcasters’ most recent round of quarterly earnings reports fell under the shadow of a prospective Paramount sale, which brought M&A back into earnings call narratives. Streaming and sports also continued to shape growth trajectories.

Programming leaders from Gray, E.W. Scripps, Graham and Sinclair discuss a future for syndication with more groups selling to each other and a growing role for FAST channels in this in this panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference. Click here to register as a TVN subscriber and get access to all videos from this exclusive event.

Wall Street barely budged Monday as the S&P 500 remained just shy of its record.

She was the first woman to own and run a major national advertising agency. Her company, Wells Rich Greene, was best known for the “I ♥ NY” campaign.

The media giant closed its upfront presentation with the statistic and other findings detailed for the first time by Mark Marshall, chairman, global aAdvertising & partnerships, at the NBCU upfront Monday. Marshall laid out first-quarter results from One Platform Total Audience, a cross-platform tool introduced at CES last January that helps advertisers find strategic audiences across linear and digital on a single media plan.