CTV

Papa Johns tapped NBCUniversal, Instacart and the dentsu-owned media agency Carat for help reaching consumers when they’re low on groceries – and thus more likely to be swayed by a mouth-watering ad.

It’s long felt like a foregone conclusion that Roku would eventually get gobbled up by a much bigger fish. Now, the day has finally arrived.

In digital advertising, if you haven’t planned your event-based campaigns several months – or more – before the event takes place, it’s usually too late.

Samsung Ads is making its home screen ads available programmatically, the company announced on Wednesday.

To squeeze the most juice out of their live sports campaigns, many marketers are adopting programmatic buying and marketing mix modeling, both of which are also drawing more advertisers to the digital live sports cornucopia.

Roku unveiled its new home screen, which includes new features designed to further personalize the home screen experience for each viewer.

Email targeting in CTV has a credibility problem as buyers and sellers question whether one-to-one identity even fits a channel built for broader reach.

At AdExchanger’s Programmatic AI conference, media experts discussed how the rise of AI-generated content is changing the industry’s understanding of “premium” content.

Upfront week is officially over. In case you missed any of the dog-and-pony shows — including Chappell Roan belting out “Pink Pony Club” during YouTube’s Broadcast — don’t worry; we’ve got you covered.

Another TV upfronts season is in the books. Please send your condolences to Senior Editor Alyssa Boyle and Associate Editor Victoria McNally as they reluctantly return to reality and their overstuffed inboxes.

TelevisaUnivision and Disney took over Day Two of upfronts week in New York City on Tuesday, and the throughline was data quality.

Warner Bros. Discovery used its upfront stage to announce two new ad measurement efforts, including that it’s joining a CAPI-focused initiative led by OpenAP.

AdExchanger Senior Editor Alyssa Boyle and Associate Editor Victoria McNally traversed the island of Manhattan on Monday to scope out upfront presentations by NBCUniversal, Fox and Amazon.

TelevisaUnivision is making a three-pronged upfront pitch this week: sports, streaming and culture.

NBCU kicked off the 2026 upfront week with an original take on a not-so-original trend: ad performance. NBCU touted how it’s tapping into modern marketing hot topics, such as sports and AI, to drive ad performance.

Amazon Ads expects this year’s television upfronts to be an outcomes-focused affair. That may explain why the company preempted its Monday evening presentation by announcing the launch of a new ad product called Dynamic TV Creative.

Replacing TV upfront presentations with client dinners originated with Paramount in 2023. Roku followed suit last year under the leadership of Jay Askinasi, who appreciated the approach when he was on the buy side. This year, Roku hosted several client dinners with all of the major holding companies as well as independent agencies in April, each with about 70 people per dinner.

Between a new quarterly earnings report and the launch of an updated video AI tool, Tuesday was a big day for CTV platform MNTN.

On Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery hosted its first quarterly earnings call with investors since agreeing to sell itself to Paramount SkyDance over Netflix in late February.

On Wednesday, Josh D’Amaro led his first earnings call as the new CEO of Disney. The company closed last quarter with $25.2 billion in revenue, a 7% year-over-year increase. Disney Entertainment advertising revenue rose 5% YOY, but ESPN ad revenue was down 2% YOY, although subscription and affiliate revenue was up 6%.

Paramount Skydance’s planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is proceeding apace. It expects to finalize the deal by the end of Q3.

As a queer media trade reporter, I often wonder whether media companies and marketers are interested in trying to form a connection with me based on my queer identity.

Roku’s two content offerings, The Roku Channel and Howdy, are both performing well, the leadership disclosed during a recent earnings call. But streaming numbers aside, the company is finding ways to translate engagement into revenue.

Pinterest announced on Monday that the tvScientific platform will now have access to its new parent company’s user audience data for CTV ad targeting.

Nielsen announced a new outcomes-based measurement capability called Predictive Sales Lift. The feature is designed to help media buyers predict sales lift and incremental revenue for video ad campaigns they run via the company’s comprehensive measurement platform, Nielsen One Ads.

Platforms using talent to corroborate sales pitches is nothing new – the TV upfronts have always included publishers peacocking their talent to impress buyers. But YouTube arguably juggles an additional obligation to act in accordance with its self-imposed competitive differentiator: authenticity.

Paramount might have outlasted and outbid Netflix in the competition to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, but Netflix is not overly fussed about the loss.

Paramount is merging the ad tech stacks behind Paramount+ and Pluto TV, releasing a new performance product, offering more control over ad placements and introducing dynamic ad insertion in live sports.

One acquisition often begets another. Take Viant, which announced its plan to acquire TVision for $40 million on Wednesday.

TelevisaUnivision is the latest TV publisher to join the self-serve trend that’s rising in popularity across connected TV advertising. Its streaming inventory is now available to buy through fullthrottle.ai’s self-serve platform. The collaboration includes an ad bidder designed to improve both targeting and measurement.