Fox Wants To Buy Tubi; A Look At Mike Bloomberg's Digital Agency

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

The Fox And The Tubi

Fox has reportedly expressed interest in buying Tubi as the streaming wars kick into high gear. The deal could be valued at more than $500 million, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. The purchase would put Fox in the camp of broadcasters who see a bright future for free, ad-supported streaming video, even as other media giants race to compete with Netflix on SVOD. NBC will launch ad-supported Peacock later this year, Viacom bought Pluto TV for $340 million last year and Comcast is in exclusive negotiations to acquire Xumo, per the WSJ. Tubi, which carries reruns of TV shows and movies, reaches 25 million monthly active users, which Fox could use as a vehicle to promote and carry its own content. More.

Hawkfish Heavyweights

Hawkfish, the digital agency behind Mike Bloomberg’s multimillion-dollar presidential ad blitz, made another high-profile hire last week: former GroupM North America CEO Tim Castree. Castree left GroupM in November 2019 after about a year as CEO, where he oversaw the world’s largest media agency network in its largest market. It’s unclear what Castree’s role will be, but Bloomberg is leaning heavily into digital media tactics used by GroupM clients, such as influencer marketing and creative versioning to speak to different audiences, CNBC reports. Bloomberg has so far spent more than $85 million on Facebook and Google, more than any other candidate or Trump, according to data from Acronym. At Hawkfish, Castree joins other high-profile executives from the marketing world such as former Facebook CMO Gary Briggs and former Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck. More. Listen: Michael Bloomberg’s Money Bomb.

Levien, The Heir Apparent?

The New York Times is edging toward COO Meredith Kopit Levien to succeed current CEO Mark Thompson, according to a report from Bloomberg. Levien, initially hired in 2013 as the Times’ head of advertising, became COO in 2017 and has since helped diversify its revenue, bulking up subscriptions, licensing and TV shows. (Read AdExchanger’s coverage.) “She helped build the Times’ in-house custom ad agency, T-Brand Studio, and got the publisher to focus on deeper ad partnerships with big companies like Verizon Communications Inc., as opposed to traditional display ads,” Bloomberg notes. More.

TrumpTube

In other political advertising news, President Trump’s reelection campaign has reserved the YouTube masthead placement – the ads that run atop the video homepage – for the first few days of November. “The deal ensures Trump will be featured prominently in the key days when voters across the country prepare to head to the polls Nov. 3,” Bloomberg reports. To reserve full US coverage on YouTube and to guarantee other candidates can’t appear, as Bloomberg reports, would likely cost $1 million or more per day. Television stations are bound by equal air time laws, but on YouTube candidates can reserve every masthead ad across the site, app and OTT app if they’re willing to absorb the costs of every impression for three days. The YouTube masthead has become a new feature of presidential incumbency, according to Teddy Goff, Obama’s former digital director and co-founder of the marketing firm Precision Strategies. In 2012, President Obama likewise secured the masthead before Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination. More.

But Wait, There’s More