Actors, musicians, dancers and comedians vouched for the value of NBCU media in between flashy performances and trailers during the programmer’s TV upfront. But about advertising, NBCU execs barely made a mention.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) broke the trend of streaming publishers reporting positive gains last quarter. But it’s slowly gaining subscribers, and expects bundling and global expansion to help speed up traction for its streaming service, Max.
For Magnite, the biggest growth opportunity lies in supply-path optimization. The trade-off is the pressure to differentiate itself from other supply-side platforms competing for agency deals.
PubMatic has its supply-path optimization initiative, its strategy to introduce direct deals for CTV and online video, to thank for its quarterly revenue growth.
Disney Advertising links up with Walmart Connect to let advertisers match Walmart’s and Disney’s first-party data for audience-based bids on Disney+ and Hulu inventory.
Disney is on track for its combined streaming offerings to reach profitability by the end of this year. Continued growth will hinge on bundling its streaming properties and its management of sports media.
Amazon unveiled three new interactive ad units for Prime Video, all of which are shoppable, ahead of its TV upfront debut.
NBCUniversal’s upfront pitch centers on advanced audiences, attribution and the fact that it built Peacock with advertising features baked in, rather than retrofitting it to support an AVOD model (unlike newer entrants to the ad-supported streaming competition).
Using Samba TV’s ACR data, StackAdapt is launching two features to help clients attribute and forecast incremental reach directly to streaming, compared to linear alone.
TV buyers predict that streaming publishers will heed their demands for greater flexibility, more programmatic execution and improved measurement during this year’s upfront season.
