Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Of Paramount Importance
Paramount is the latest entertainment studio headed for a showdown with Nielsen.
Variety first reported last week that the routine business of Paramount re-upping Nielsen ratings was potentially going sideways.
The current deal expires … today. So if you didn’t wake up to an update on the matter, then Paramount has dropped the Nielsen ratings. VideoAmp would be Paramount’s backstop for advertising ratings.
Although, would that last?
Contract dispute deadlines have a way of breaking deadlocked negotiations. And the TV advertising industry is still reliant on Nielsen, even after years of would-be challengers seemingly about to snatch the incumbent’s crown.
For broadcasters, Nielsen’s claim to an ever-growing slice of the pie is galling, considering Nielsen is the one lowering their numbers.
“Nielsen is insisting on substantial price increases across all their products, including linear measurement, despite the changing economic landscape of our industry,” Paramount President of Ad Sales John Halley told agency clients in a note last week. “Nielsen’s costs as a percentage of Paramount ad revenue have quintupled over significant parts of our business over the last years; in certain instances, Nielsen’s fees already exceed the total advertising revenue of the network being measured.”
The Not-So-Great Algo
Forbes seems to have been rebuked by Google Search, following a series of reports regarding Forbes’ odious monetization schemes.
Earlier this year, Forbes was exposed operating an MFA subdomain.
And a week ago, Lars Lofgren, co-founder and chief growth officer at the digital B2B advisory firm Stone Press, convincingly documented the strange out-shooting of Forbes Marketplace, a separate business partially owned by Forbes that operates parasite SEO sites – trading on the legitimacy of a publishing brand to earn SEO revenue with little to no effort, often by swiping content from authentic sites or writers.
Now, Forbes’ search traffic is nosediving, reports Search Engine Roundtable.
Nobody knows the rationale behind Forbes’ SEO decline. But it’s likely a manual action taken within Google, based on the outside reporting of Forbes’ tactics.
This is important aside from one publisher being a bad actor. Google’s new site reputation abuse policy – a major re-architecture for product recommendation searches in particular – isn’t algorithmic.
For all of Google’s machine learning and AI capabilities, it will require humans to uncover and report even the most obvious and flagrant abuses for years before the algo might be capable of filling the job.
No More Games
Epic Games is pressing its offensive as US regulators take a tougher stance on online platform monopolies.
Epic, the maker of Fortnite, has been the most aggressive corporate antitrust antagonist in recent years, taking on Apple and Google to force some concessions to third-party developers.
This time, Epic is targeting Google and Samsung. A new product called “Auto Blocker” now comes on by default for Samsung phones. The Verge reports that Auto Blocker prohibits downloads for unauthorized app stores – and only Google Play and Samsung’s Galaxy store apps are allowed.
One of the things Epic was fighting for with Google and Apple is the right to establish its own app store (which is itself just an app, after all). The company alleges this Auto Blocker is devised to prevent Fortnite from creating a successful in-app app-downloading service. And The Verge reports that Samsung has recently changed its notification when Auto Blocker prevents an app install, so it’s become even more difficult to find out why an install stopped and switch the Auto Blocker off.
But Wait, There’s More!
DirectTV has agreed to acquire Dish Network from EchoStar. [Axios]
California governor Gavin Newsom vetoes a massive AI safety bill, citing its potential impact on AI companies. [The Verge]
The Playstation 5 pushes old, often irrelevant ads onto the homescreen background, replacing the previous background of video game art. [IGN]
You’re Hired!
Tinuiti hires former GroupM operations lead Andrea Snyder as managing director of its portfolio of “emerging” clients. [release]
