Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Baa Ram EU
Forget about the US antitrust trial for a second; it’s time to see what Google’s getting in trouble for across the pond.
Bloomberg reports that EU officials are preparing formal charges against Alphabet Inc. for breaching the Digital Markets Act.
Preliminary findings won’t be issued until October, according to Bloomberg’s anonymous sources, but it reportedly has something to do with how Google displays competitors’ results across its different search products, like Google Flights.
Fortunately for Google, the company still has some time to address these concerns by proposing new design options to the EU commission. If they can’t figure it out before a final decision is released in March, however, they could be on the hook for a pretty major fine.
Speaking of fines, Google’s already juggling quite a few; it just lost one appeal against a $2.7 billion fine in an EU antitrust case, but then won another appeal for a similar $1.67 billion fine.
Bugging Out
Meta’s ad platform has been especially buggy lately, spurred by its increasing reliance on automated tools like Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, six media buyers tell Marketing Brew.
During a recent campaign for a fashion brand, Meta’s targeting flipped unexpectedly from younger audiences on Instagram to 65+ audiences on Facebook, says Harry Delmege, CEO of MHI Media. Few of these older Facebook users converted, costing the advertiser five figures in wasted ad spend. Results like this “can crush our business,” Delmege says.
Five other buyers shared stories of ads not loading, wonky targeting and budgets getting blown within hours due to bidding quirks. Three buyers say Meta’s platform has seemed extra buggy since February.
And when buyers do encounter problems, they find Meta’s account support lacking due to cuts made during the company’s “Year of Efficiency” in 2023.
According to Meta’s own tracking, Facebook Ad Manager has experienced 12 disruptions since Memorial Day, with four of these classified as “major.” But Meta says “our ads system is working as expected for the vast majority of advertisers” and that the number of disruptions on its platform in Q1 2024 were down compared to the previous year.
A Pittance Of Pay TV
Pay TV is dying.
And the shift of live sports into streaming via new bundles and subscription services is causing the pay TV business to erode even more quickly, Business Insider reports.
“Sports has a lot to do with keeping the bundle together,” says Tim Nollen, a media analyst at the investment banking firm Macquarie Group. “But now that sports is going streaming, that will hasten the decline of the [pay TV] bundle further.”
Just look at Disney, which is launching ESPN+ as a standalone streaming service next fall to shield its sports network from cable’s decay. Nollen predicts the pace of pay TV cancellations will double to a 15% annual churn rate by 2027, in part because of the ESPN+ app launch.
Disney also riled up traditional programming distributors by joining forces with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery to form Venu Sports. Earlier this year, a US district judge ruled against the joint venture over concerns that it will siphon between 50% and 70% of Venu’s subscriber base from pay TV providers and video programming distributors. (No wonder Fubo’s opposing Venu.)
But Wait, There’s More!
OpenAI closes in on the largest VC round of all time. [Axios]
Why agency pricing models should emphasize relationships over time and cost. [Ad Age]
Discord is making key hires to build out its advertising business. [Digiday]
A proposed Biden tariff rule could burden Chinese ecommerce imports, potentially limiting the surging retail ad spend from Temu, Shein, Alibaba and others. [WSJ]
