In this week’s Week in Review: M6+ goes live in France, Netflix expands its live sports offering, and Dentsu launches a new retail media unit in the UK.
Top Stories
Netflix Buys Rights to Christmas Day NFL Games
Streaming giant Netflix has continued its push into live sports broadcasting, this week announcing it has secured global streaming rights to NFL games played on Christmas day in a three year deal. Netflix will show two games this year, and at least one game on Christmas day in 2024 and 2025, with mostly exclusive rights – with the exception of the competing teams’ home cities where they’ll be available on TV, and on mobile in the US where they’ll be available on NFL+.
Netflix has increased investment in sports content in recent years, and though it has publicly maintained it had no major plans to bid for major live sports packages, it has started buying up rights to sports content. The biggest of these came earlier this year, when Netflix acquired rights to wrestling brand WWE’s flagship show Raw in the US, and all of its content in international markets.
This NFL deal fits with Netflix’s sports strategy so far, of looking for global rights it can exploit across its massive international user base, as opposed to investing in domestic rights for sports leagues. Netflix hasn’t said whether it will run ads during the NFL games – but doing so would bolster Netflix’s ad offering, giving it mass simultaneous reach which it can’t offer advertisers with the majority of its content.
Dentsu Launches Specialised Retail Media Unit in UK
Agency group Dentsu this week announced it is launching a new retail media unit, called Retail Media Specialised Practice, in the UK. The practice will work with brands looking to run end-to-end retail media campaigns, as well as retailers themselves which are building retail media offerings. It will cover campaigns running directly on retailers’ owned-and-operated inventory, as well as campaigns on third-party channels where retail data can be used for targeting and measurement, including TV, social media, the open web, search, and email.
“Dentsu’s Retail Media Specialised Practice offers flexible, transparent, retailer-owned, technology-independent capabilities that integrate seamlessly into existing tech stacks—a necessity for retailers and brands in today’s landscape,” said Paul Lynch, integrated solutions lead for commerce and retail at Dentsu UK&I. “We are providing a roadmap for our customers to deliver the ultimate retail experience and drive value realisation.”
Dentsu says areas the new practice will operate in include monetising first-party data and creating new revenue streams for retailers, improving efficiency of buy-side media with automated insights and activation, and developing new retail media experiences which operate across consumer touchpoints.
M6 Launches its New Streaming Platform
French broadcaster M6 launched its new free ad-supported streaming platform M6+ this week. M6 says the new app is a significant upgrade to its previous on-demand product 6Play, with double the amount of content, an AI-powered search engine, and an updated video player with interactive data visualisation features built in. M6+ is also launching with more than 20 free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels built in, and also producing short-form content based on its series called M6+ Stories
The broadcaster is pitching M6+ to advertisers as a complement to linear TV, providing “precise and high-performance data targeting” and “optimised quality of ad exposure”. Eight brands have signed up to launch partnerships: L’Oreal, Henkel, L’Or, Intermarché, Skoda, Booking, HP, and Forunteo. These brands will appear in special ad slots at the start of ad breaks on M6+, and also run ads on some of the new formats developed for M6+.
The Week in Tech
Barb Issues Tender for Big Data Providers
Barb this week formally issued a tender for big data providers, as it looks to enhance its panel-based TV measurement data with big data sets. Earlier this month it issued a tender to develop methodology for merging these two types of data, and now for the data itself. Barb’s chief operating officer Caroline Baxter said the company is seeking sources of return-path data which cover as much of the UK population as possible, as many linear viewing types as possible, and that don’t have a bias towards certain channels or viewing behaviours.
Samsung Ads UK Launches Insights Planner Tool
Samsung’s advertising arm Samsung Ads this week launched its Insights Planner tool for all UK clients and advertisers. Insights Planner provides buyers with planning insights based on Samsung’s own automatic content recognition (ACR) data and other proprietary first-party data, as well as data from partnered third parties including Experian. Samsung says the tool can show which users and audiences have seen a linear TV ad campaign, showing who hasn’t been reached and where else those unreached audiences can be found.
Nexxen and Stagwell Partner on Audience Discovery
Ad tech business Nexxen this week announced a deal with advertising holding business Stagwell, which will see Stagwell use data solutions powered by Nexxen within its own internal Stagwell Marketing Cloud. Nexxen says the deal will enable Stagwell clients to augment their own data with Nexxen’s own data offering (now called the Nexxen Platform) via Nexxen’s unified identity graph. The deal will also see Stagwell run spend through Nexxen’s DSP, and directly into its SSP.
Rumble Sues Google for $1 Billion, Citing Anticompetitive Practices
Video sharing platform Rumble is filing a lawsuit against Google seeking $1 billion in damages, citing anticompetitive practices in the ad tech space. Rumble, which is known for hosting creators who have been banned from Google-owned competitor YouTube, says Google has monopolised the ad tech space through buying up companies on the buy and sell-side, and through a deal with Meta which prevented it from offering a competing product. Google has denied Rumble’s claims.
X Claims 8 Billion Video Views Per Day
X claimed in a newsletter to advertisers this week that it is now averaging 8 billion video views on its platform per day, Digiday reported this week. X counts a view when at least two seconds of a video has played and at least 50 percent of the video player was viewable on screen. X has been increasingly positioning itself as a video platform as it seeks to draw more ad spend onto its platform.
Reddit Agrees Data Deal with OpenAI
Social platform Reddit has signed a deal with OpenAI giving the latter access to its content data, which it can use to train its large language models. The agreement will mean Reddit posts will surface in some responses within ChatGPT, while OpenAI and Reddit will also work together on AI-powered tools within the platform. OpenAI has also signed up as an advertising partner on Reddit as part of the deal.
Snap Partners with Scope3 on New Emissions Solution
Snap this week announced a new partnership with sustainability tech business Scope3, which will make it easier for marketers to measure carbon emissions generated by Snapchat ad campaigns. Snap says under the deal it is working with Scope3 to refine and enhance its emissions model for the platform, and contributing additional data to enable Scope3 to measure its platform-specific video and VR ad formats.
Yahoo Sees Increased Industry Testing of Google’s Privacy Sandbox
Yahoo DSP this week released data from its own tests of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, showing an uptick of testing on the sell-side of the industry. Yahoo found that there was an overall upward trend of SSP and web domain adoption for March. Three new SSPs were seen by Yahoo to have started processing Protected Audience auctions (PAs) in March, bringing the total number of SSPs processing these auctions up to eight. And Yahoo has seen more domains adopting PAs, with double-digit growth over the course of a few weeks.
The Week in TV
ProSieben says Content Investments are Paying Off as Ad Revenues Grow Five Percent
German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 posted its full financial results for Q1 this week, reporting a five percent year-on-year increase in advertising revenues in the German speaking region. Joyn, ProSieben’s free ad-supported streaming service, was a major contributor, as audiences grow and monetisation of those audiences increase. But ProSieben is still investing significantly in linear TV too, with plans to ramp up content spend as it seeks further growth across its linear channels and streaming service. Read more on VideoWeek.
Netflix Plans to Build its Own Ad Tech Offering
Netflix announced at its UpFront presentation this week that it is building its own internal ad tech, which it hopes to launch at the end of next year. Netflix initially worked with Microsoft to build out its advertising offering, but announced it is now broadening out, giving access to its inventory to The Trade Desk, Google, and Magnite. The streamer didn’t say whether its own internal ad tech will replace these partnerships or work alongside them.
Bob Iger says Disney has Dramatically Cut Linear TV Spending
Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said this week that the media company has dramatically cut the amount of money it invests in its traditional TV business, as it focussed more on its streaming unit Disney+, which turned a profit for the first time in its most recent quarter. Iger, speaking at MoffettNathanson’s 2024 Media, Internet and Communications Conference in New York, said that these channels are still valuable for reaching older viewers who don’t engage with Disney+. And some content commissioned by Disney runs on both its streaming and linear TV properties. But content investment aimed specifically at linear channels has fallen significantly.
Channel 4 Reworks its Web-Based Streaming Offering
Channel 4 has redesigned its website to bring it more in line with its CTV streaming offering, as part of its effort to become a “public service streamer”. Channel 4’s streaming content can be accessed via a web browser as well as via dedicated apps, and the broadcaster says the redesign gives a more app-like appearance to the website. The website will also surface and recommend content in the same manner as Channel 4’s apps.
Media Companies Warn of “Disastrous Impact” if BBC Runs Ads
A number of major media companies including ITV, Channel 4, DMG Media, Reach, and Sky signed a joint letter to the UK’s culture secretary Lucy Frazer this week, warning of a “disastrous impact” on the ad industry if BBC goes ahead with plans to run ads on some of its audio content. The BBC earlier this year said it will start running ads on podcasts and on-demand audio hosted on third-party platforms. But the signatories say that the BBC’s ability to create a lot of content without the same commercial constraints as other businesses would harm smaller companies.
Amazon Ads Signs Up to Barb’s Audience Reporting
Barb announced this week that Amazon Ads has signed up to its industry standard audience reporting services. Barb’s monthly report covering reach and share of viewing for broadcasters and streaming services will now include Amazon Prime Video and Twitch at the service level. Barb says its own data on Amazon’s products will complement analytics and measurement tools offered within Amazon Ads itself.
The Week for Publishers
British Newspapers Challenge Apple Over Ad Blocking Plan
The News Media Association, a trade group representing British news companies including The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Reach, and News UK, has warned Apple that a planned new tool on its Safari web browser threatens the financial sustainability of journalism, the Financial Times reported this week. Apple is reportedly working on a ‘web eraser’ tool which would let internet users permanently hide sections of web pages they visit, including areas where ads appear. The NMA described it as a “blunt instrument” which would threaten vital ad revenues.
Programmatic Growth Can’t Stop Ad Revenues Plummeting for BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed’s revenues in Q1 came in at $44.8 million, down 18 percent year-on-year, according to the company’s financial results this week. This was due in large part to plummeting ad revenues, which were down 22 percent, as well as falling content revenues, down 19 percent. BuzzFeed said that revenues from programmatic advertising were up for the third consecutive quarter, and direct traffic is growing. But these factors haven’t been enough to counter falling social traffic and a relatively tough ad market for publishers.
DMG Media Sees Growth in Digital Revenues
DMG Media, the media group which owns The Daily Mail, Metro, and i among others, saw growth in digital revenues across the past six months despite a tough ad market, CEO Rich Caccappolo told Press Gazette this week. Caccappolo said part of this success comes from the fact that DMG Media’s properties get a lot of direct traffic, insulating them from falling referral traffic from tech companies. He also spoke out against hard paywalls for news publishers, warning that they create a two-tiered system, where those with more money have better access to information.
Tough US Ad Market Leads to Revenue Fall for Future
Specialist publisher Future posted its financial results for its financial H2 2024 (covering October 1st – March 31st), reporting total revenues down three percent year-on-year. UK organic revenues were up three percent year-on-year during the period, but US organic revenues were down by 11 percent due to a tough ad market. But Future said digital ad revenues in the US returned to organic growth in Q2, as did total revenues across the company, up three percent year-on-year.
The Independent Formally Debuts New Network After BuzzFeed Deal
The Independent this week formally debuted Independent Media, a new network comprising The Independent, BuzzFeed UK, HuffPost UK, Tasty UK, and Seasoned. The launch comes after The Independent announced a deal earlier in the year to take over the running of BuzzFeed and some of its sister brands in the UK. Independent media says it will allow commercial partners to seamlessly buy across the network, with combined on-site audiences that together reach half of all British consumers.
Politico Rolls Out Audience Registration Wall
Axel Springer-owned political publication Politico has launched a registration wall, which will require readers to create an account providing basic information if they want unlimited access to content. Politico will ask users to register once they’ve read ten articles within a month, asking for their email, job title, and employer. This data will give Politico a better understanding of its audience, and can be used for ad targeting, according to Adweek.
The Week For Brands & Agencies
ANA Calls for Transparency and Clarity in Principal Media
Advertiser trade group the ANA this week released a new report on the rise of principal media, highlighting a lack of understanding from some brand marketers about what it is and whether their agencies are doing it, and suggesting brands should be proactive in pushing for clarity and transparency from agencies. Only 48 percent of brand marketers surveyed by the ANA said they are very familiar with principal media. And given the risks that principal media models may incentivise agencies not to act in their clients’ best interests, the ANA said brand marketers should take more control over principal media trading, for example by setting caps, updating contracts, and asking agencies to explain clearly why principal media is in their best interests.
Marketing Budgets Fall as Percentage of Revenues, finds Gartner
The average marketing budget has fallen to 7.7 percent of overall company revenues in 2024, according to a new survey of 395 CMOs and marketing leaders from Gartner. This is a significant drop from 9.1 percent last year, and is below the post-pandemic average of 8.2 percent. And the post-pandemic average itself is a significant fall from the pre-pandemic average of 11 percent.
Many CMOs say they don’t have enough budget to execute their 2024 strategies, according to Gartner’s chief of research at its marketing practice Ewan McIntyre. And many are hoping that AI tools can deliver efficiency to fill in for the shortfall in budget.
Dentsu Posts 3.7 Percent Fall in Organic Revenues in Q1
Japanese holding company Dentsu posted its results for the first quarter of the year, with organic revenues down 3.7 percent, which the company said was in line with expectations. Organic revenues in Japan were up, but fell by 6.6 percent in the Americas and by 9.4 percent in EMEA. Nonetheless Dentsu expects improvement across the rest of the year, targeting full year organic growth of one percent.
Omnicom Media Group Wins Major Gap Media Account
Fashion retailer Gap has handed media duties covering the US, Canada, and Japan to Omnicom Media Group, the company announced this week. The account will be served by a range of Omnicom-owned media agencies, with OMD anchoring the business, according to AdAge. Gap also announced this week it is creating a marketing shared services organisation, as it seeks to standardise media processes across its various sub-brands.
WPP’s Mark Read Targeted in Deepfake Scam
Mark Read, CEO of agency holding company WPP, this week revealed he was the target of a scam which used deepfake technology to impersonate him in a meeting with an unnamed agency leader, seeking to obtain money and personal details. The scammers used a fake WhatsApp profile to set up the meeting, and then used deepfake voice technology and YouTube footage of Read to impersonate him on a Microsoft Teams call.
Audiences Feel Increasingly Represented in Ads, finds Spark Foundry Report
Twenty-eight percent of respondents to a survey in January from Publicis-owned media agency Spark Foundry said they felt represented in ads, an increase from 16 percent in September and October. Spark Foundry’s latest Insights Accelerated report found that 62 percent of respondents felt represented by TV ads, the highest rate for any channel. TikTok meanwhile was found to be representative of 18-34s (62 percent), but only 12 percent of over 55s and 30 percent of those sitting within the C2DE social grade said they feel represented on TikTok ads.
Hires of the Week
Reddit Hires Jyoti Vaidee as VP of Ad Sales
Social sharing platform Reddit has hired Jyoti Vaidee in the newly created role of VP of ads sales, the company announced on Monday. Vaidee, who previously helped develop various ad products at Google as director of product management, will drive ads product strategy, execution, and management of the Ads Product organisation.
Sharjeel Suleman Joins Future as CFO
Specialist publisher Future has announced it has appointed Sharjeel Suleman as its new chief financial officer. Suleman currently holds the CFO role at ITV Studios, and will start at Future some time after Penny Ladkin-Brand, the publisher’s current CFO, leaves in July.
Index Exchange Appoints Cadi Jones as SVP, Europe
Ad tech business Index Exchange has hired Cadi Jones as its new SVP, Europe, the company announced this week, where the company says she will spearhead the strategic direction and execution of Index’s operations across Europe. Jones joins from Pixability, where she was MD for EMEA.
This Week on VideoWeek
How Measuring Brand Lift Can Help CTV Avoid the Pitfalls of Digital
ProSieben says Content Investments are Paying Off as Ad Revenues Grow Five Percent
Publishers Fear Ad Revenue Slide with First-Party Cookies Under Threat
UpFronts in Review: Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and More
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