Digital

Worldwide fraud rates for optimized ad campaign meant to protect brands fell to all-time lows in the second half of 2023, but those unprotected rose 14 times higher, according to data released Tuesday by media measurement and optimization platform Integral Ad Science. Rates for optimized campaigns fell to 0.6% from 0.9% the two prior years. The year-over-year rate in the Americas dropped to 0.1 point.

The game, which will see Clark’s Indiana Fever face off against the Connecticut Sun, is set for May 14, and will be the first (non-animated) live sports event on Disney+.

The FCC is set to vote May 23 on a proposal to ban labs owned by companies deemed to be national security risks from its equipment authorization program. Companies on the agency’s “covered list” are already barred from receiving FCC authorizations necessary to sell new wireless products, as well as from being vendors for federally funded projects. The proposal circulated Thursday would prohibit labs and facilities from conducting tests for the agency as part of that authorization program if they’re at least 10% owned by a covered list entity.

The social media company and its Chinese parent, ByteDance, sued to challenge the new law, saying it violated users’ First Amendment rights.

eBay Ads leads the company’s organization that runs the machine learning (ML) and the AI recommender systems, a data-filtering tool that uses AI and ML to suggest items to users. They are commonly used by ecommerce and social media sites. It also powers eBay’s $1.4 billion business, which helps sellers reach customers with ads and organic recommendations.

Meta Platforms is urging a federal appellate court to reconsider a recent 2-1 decision allowing Facebook and Instagram advertisers to proceed with a class-action fraud lawsuit over inflated metrics. In papers filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Meta says the panel ruling doesn’t “make any sense in a case like this,” given that the class of affected advertisers includes entities ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses to government agencies. Meta adds that the ruling will make it “virtually impossible” for defendants in other lawsuits to oppose class-action certification.

85% of Amazon’s Prime Video subs are now in the ad-supported tier, more than any other streaming service, according to Hub’s quarterly TV Churn Tracker.

Looking to ramp up performance-based advertising efforts for better business outcomes, NBCUniversal has started a new retail media partnership with Instacart to help consumer packaged goods advertisers with their campaigns. The grocery-delivery company will look to provide new first-party purchase data from CPG brands connected to advertising exposure on NBCUniversal’s streaming content in order to measure the impact of brand campaigns.

A group of Google users who are suing the company over alleged privacy violations are now battling with it over a key issue in the case — whether the company adequately disclosed how it collects analytics data. The legal fight, which dates to 2000, focuses on Google Analytics for Firebase — a tool that can collect data about smartphone users’ app usage.

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New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include an opening for a director of student media and a national operations director. Existing openings include a digital platform specialist, an account executive and a sales director.

The sports streaming platform FuboTV — which is battling to stop a rival Disney, Warners and Fox sports streaming joint venture in the works — reported it ended the first quarter with 1.51 million paid subscribers in North America, down from 1.61 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023.

As social networks become less reliable distributors of the news, consumers of digital journalism are seeking out an older form of online real estate.

Judge Amit P. Mehta tried poking holes in the closing arguments of a landmark monopoly case as he weighs a ruling that could reshape tech.

Major League Baseball and Roku are in advanced talks to make the service the new home for Sunday morning baseball this season, sources briefed on the discussions confirmed on Thursday. The games were previously on NBC’s subscription streaming service Peacock. Peacock has been interested in retaining the MLB Sunday Leadoff package of nearly 20 games. It paid $30 million per season, but was only willing to renew for about a third of that price, according to executives briefed on the discussions.

Medical dramas The Resident and Grey’s Anatomy were Nielsen’s top two streaming titles for the week of April 1-7, finishing with 1.18 billion and 1.15 billion minutes of viewing time (both stream on Hulu and Netflix). Disney’s animated movie Wish had its streaming premiere on April 3 and racked up 1.02 billion minutes of watch time over its first five days on Disney+.

Kantar has released a new study showing the U.S. streaming market has hit a saturation point, with the household penetration rate stagnating and at near universal levels. Streaming services were available in 95% of, or 123 million, U.S. households, growing only 0.1% quarter-on-quarter, according to Kantar’s latest Entertainment on Demand (EoD) data on the US streaming market from January to March 2024. The study found, however, that the average number of paid services accessed per household continues to rise, with U.S. households now subscribing to 3.9 paid services on average.

From a studio space in Chelsea, Spotify hosted its first-ever NewFronts event on Wednesday. Discussing a steep rise in consumers’ video consumption, Spotify’s Head of Sales Ann Piper and Global Creative Director Kay Hsu highlighted new advertising opportunities in digital video on the platform. Spotify is focused on becoming a more “immersive” platform. It has already tackled “utility” and “curation” in previous years, according to the presentation with slides by Hsu.

MeTV Toons, the latest digital broadcast network from Weigel Broadcasting, will debut June 25. The new network is a collaboration between Warner Bros. Discovery and Weigel that will deliver classic animation to viewers across free over-the-air broadcast channels and on traditional and virtual MVPD platforms as a free advertising-supported streaming television (FAST) channel.

SAG-AFTRA has enlisted Nielsen to cross-check the streaming data the union will be receiving from the Hollywood studios as part of the historic new deal struck in 2023, which provides bonuses based on streaming performance of movies and shows. The union said in a statement that in Nielsen, it will have “an objective source of domestic viewership data for original streaming programming” to compliment the performance numbers provided by the studios.

Sports, politics, sex, SpongeBob: There’s nothing ESPN’s biggest star won’t argue about — as long as you keep listening.