Hulu Ad Business To Accelerate; Comcast-Owned Sky Constructs An Ad Stack

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Price Drop, Inventory Hop

All those digital buyers complaining about Hulu being sold out of ad inventory will see a reprieve. The streaming platform’s decision to lower the price of its ad-supported plan to $5.99 a month will bring more users and ad dollars to Hulu, according to eMarketer. Hulu ad revenues will grow 22.7% to $2.2 billion from 2019 to 2020. Before the decision to lower the price of the streaming plan, eMarketer estimated Hulu would grow just 11.4% over the same time period. Just 17% of consumers use ad-supported subscription services, however, compared to 44% of consumers who pay for ad-free Netflix, Amazon Prime or HBO Go. Read the report.

Sky’s The Limit

UK broadcaster Sky is working with sister company NBCU to create a unified set of advanced advertising products under senior VP Denise Colella. Advertisers will be able to leverage NBCU’s audience targeting capabilities alongside Sky’s to reach an international audience and measure results across both networks, Broadcasting & Cable reports. Comcast has been slow to develop addressable solutions with NBCU despite acquiring the network 10 years ago. But the quick effort to combine Sky and NBCU’s addressable capabilities just five months after Sky’s acquisition shows how fast the race for advanced TV dollars is heating up. “NBCUniversal and Sky are committed to setting the highest possible standards and transforming the ad experience,” said NBCU ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino. “Bringing our advanced advertising solutions under one global structure is the first step in our journey.” More.

No Money Back

Last week’s Facebook outage has left a handful of marketers wanting refunds, but skeptical they’ll get them, according to AdAge. Media companies like Social Outlier, which typically spend $400,000 daily on Facebook, found themselves locked out of Ads Manager, but still spending money. While Facebook wouldn’t comment to AdAge on whether it would provide refunds, getting money back from Facebook is reportedly rare, and the quantities small. Those issues certainly haven’t kept advertisers from spending: “In spite of its flaws, Facebook stands to remain the most important sales channel for performance marketers, the type of ad buyers that demand immediate returns from their campaigns, whether that’s direct sales, website visits or new users.” More.

But Wait, There’s More!