Publishers

The Media Rating Council stripped Nielsen of its National TV ratings accreditation Wednesday and formally denied its request for a hiatus after the measurement giant underreported viewers during the pandemic. Nielsen asked the MRC last month to put its accreditation on hold in order to address issues with its panels and focus on the development […]

The ad management space is consolidating. Freestar acquired Sortable Wednesday in a deal that expands Freestar’s inventory by 30% and increases its staff from 90 to 130 people. Freestar, which is profitable, self-funded the acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is “completely additive” on multiple fronts, Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell said. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC’s All Folks Vice Media officially nixed plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), at least for now, The Information reports. However, Vice did raise an additional $85 million from existing investors. A portion of those funds are earmarked for […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The SPAC Attack Online publishers are popular takeover targets for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which promise a route to IPO without the typical pre-IPO roadshow – the well-known brand merges with an already-public shell company. First-party data and ad tech companies have boomed […]

Ad verification and measurement provider DoubleVerify is set to acquire Berlin-based ad tech company Meetrics, a deal that will help fuel the newly minted public company’s global expansion. The all-cash purchase is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021. DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski declined to disclose the sale price. Meetrics was founded in […]

The “big two” in brand safety both went public this year. Over the next two weeks, AdExchanger will publish podcast interviews with both companies’ CEOs: Lisa Utzschneider of Integral Ad Science and Mark Zagorski of DoubleVerify. Utzschneider is up first. We kick off with a discussion of IAS’s acquisition of Publica, an ad server and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Publisher Action  Forbes is jumping on the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) bandwagon as a route to go public, CNBC reports. The business publisher announced plans to IPO at a $630 million value. The cash infusion will help Forbes’s “digital transformation,” and CEO Mike […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Shot Across The Bows Comscore is capitalizing on Nielsen’s latest stumble. The company told AdExchanger in an email that it asked to be audited by the MRC for both national and local TV measurement accreditation – a clear dig at Nielsen’s MRC disaccreditation […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vizionary Vizio Ads made big gains during the recent upfronts negotiations, where Roku has been the CTV champion in recent years. Vizio announced in a press release that it locked in more than $100 million for 2022, quadrupling its total from last year (which […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Under Pressure NBCUniversal is turning the screws on Nielsen as the MRC considers stripping its National TV rating. Nielsen has long dominated TV ratings but is under fire for underreporting viewers and missing visibility into streaming, mobile and desktop. The Olympics on NBC underwhelmed […]

Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. OpenAP was founded four years ago by a group of TV networks that wanted to bring advanced advertising principles to traditional TV. The original idea was to join forces to improve the consumer ad experience – aligning on things like […]

The past few months have been wild for online advertising. Apple has implemented its AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework, and Google announced it would delay the phase-out of third-party cookies in Chrome. A tumultuous ride to be sure. What will be the real impact of these moves on ad tech? AdExchanger examined the Q2 earnings reports of […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. BuzzKill As he prepares to take his company public via SPAC, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has made concessions to irate shareholder NBCUniversal that could put him in the hot seat, according to The Wall Street Journal. To summarize: NBCU stands to lose money in […]

Nielsen’s potential loss of its accreditation by the Media Rating Council as early as this week could fuel greater adoption of alternative measurement currencies that use advanced data and analytics rather than the traditional panel-based surveys the measurement giant is known for. Nielsen has long been accused of undercounting TV viewership. Recently, networks have expressed […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Everything Store Adds More Audio Amazon is new to podcasting but it’s moving fast, borrowing from Spotify’s playbook. After scooping up podcast publisher Wondery eight months ago, it’s now signing exclusive distribution and ad deals with buzzy podcasts like SmartLess (hosted by Jason Bateman, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Booming Biz The DSP Viant reported a year-over-year revenue increase of 66% to $50.4 million. Viant IPOed in February, part of a recent boom in programmatic companies on the public market. As with most of those companies, Viant is going big on CTV, which […]

Ad verification and measurement provider Integral Ad Science held its first earnings call after going public just over a month ago. Revenue increased 55% to $75.1 million year-over-year. That growth was largely fueled by programmatic revenue, which jumped 94% to $31.8 million compared to the same period last year. Programmatic accounts for 42% of total Q2 revenue, as […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Premesh Purayil, CTO, Freestar. As we all know, Google’s Core Web Vitals scores and related changes to search result prioritization have thrust site speed and user experience to the forefront for all publishers.  Ask […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Agency Revival “Broad-based recovery” is the term of the week, repeated in quarterly earnings calls by ad giants like Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, as well as the publicly traded agency holding companies, which capped off unexpectedly strong years with additional growth in Q2 […]

The arms race to acquire subscribers for streaming services is well underway. ViacomCBS’s total streaming subscribers jumped 6.5 million, for a total of 42 million subscribers across Pluto TV, Showtime OTT, BET Plus and Paramount Plus, which launched an ad-supported version in June. ViacomCBS has a goal of reaching 65 million to 75 million global […]

Roku saw viewership decline in Q2 as pandemic restrictions eased. Streaming hours dropped a billion hours from Q1 to 17.4 billion hours in Q2, and the company’s stock was down 9% on Thursday. While Roku’s streaming hours declined sequentially, they still increased 19% from the previous year, during the early days of lockdown. It added […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Return Of The Jedi? Google is accused of allegedly cutting a deal with Facebook (again) to “fix” ad rates in programmatic auctions, Ad Age reports. The claim is made in a new antitrust suit filed against the search giant by two Massachusetts companies. The […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Big Discovery Fresh off the news that it will merge with WarnerMedia next year to create a media behemoth, Discovery Inc. reported powerhouse earnings in Q2. Discovery ended Q2 with 17 million direct-to-consumer subscribers, up from 11 million last quarter, netting the company $400 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Video Killed The TV Star Comcast’s and Google’s earnings calls last week mark two converging trends in brand advertising and the decline of linear TV. NBC is haggling with advertisers of the Olympics because ratings are down – 42% down – at the halfway […]

Fresh off its IPO in April, ad verification provider DoubleVerify saw its revenue increase 44% to $76.5 million year-over-year in Q2, fueled by the growth of programmatic. DoubleVerify took in $37.9 million in programmatic revenue in Q2 – a 57% increase from the same period last year – largely driven by its Authentic Brand Safety […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Jed Hartman, US President, Channel Factory. The evolution of digital media has unleashed a number of unintended negative consequences. Just to rattle off a few examples: The quest for impression-based scale led to advertisers […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Tunnel Vizio-n Vizio will remove many DSPs from its Inscape smart TV data service, Business Insider reports. Inscape was a popular way to retarget CTV audiences using online advertising IDs, working with DSPs such as The Trade Desk, VideoAmp, Engine Group, MediaMath and Cadent. […]

Comcast-owned NBCUniversal’s ad-supported streaming service Peacock hit 54 million subscribers and more than 20 million monthly active users in the second quarter of 2021. During the company’s Q2 earnings call Thursday, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said the number of subscribers grew 50% over 90 days, driven in large part by the Olympics, the release of […]

After an upfront season where buyers snapped up CTV inventory, programmatic buyers are concerned that there won’t be much left. This spike in digital video deals, along with a post-pandemic decrease in viewership, could make it difficult for advertisers to access programmatic inventory in the fourth quarter of 2021 and beyond, according to agency and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Olympic Edge During the Olympic Games, Comcast will interrupt its own commercials with near-live highlights and coverage, Variety reports, taking advantage of the fact it owns NBCUniversal and Olympic broadcast rights. “This makes the viewer feel like, ‘How did that just happen? I […]