Publishers

With no live sports on the schedule, AT&T lost nearly 900,000 paid subscribers across its premium TV business, which includes DirecTV, U-verse and AT&T TV. That’s nearly double the number of Q1 2019 paid subscriber losses, which were around 544,000. Total pay TV revenue was $10.5 billion, down 7.2%. Sports have long been considered paid […]

News flash to no one: The economy is going up in flames … but Netflix is on fire. Millions of people around the world are under stay-at-home orders, and lots of them are signing up for Netflix, which had its biggest quarter for user growth in Q1 with the addition of 15.77 million new paid […]

NBCUniversal’s Fandango snapped up Vudu from Walmart for an undisclosed price Tuesday, making it the latest independent streaming service to get gobbled up by a big media player. “We are moving into the consolidation phase of the streaming business,” said Forrester principal analyst Jim Nail, citing this deal and Fox’s acquisition of Tubi in March. […]

YouTube has broadened its measurement partner program and made it easier for buyers to find the right service provider for their needs. On Monday, YouTube added Channel Factory, Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, Sightly and VuePlanner to the program. Existing partners include Pixability, Zefr, Tubular Labs and Wizdeo. But OpenSlate, which had been a member of […]

For the next five months, Google is waiving its Ad Manager ad serving fees for news publishers around the globe, which have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Read the blog post. Many have seen ad revenue fall as national and local advertisers pull back, and as coronavirus-related keyword blocking makes it difficult to […]

Axios launched its first mobile app on Wednesday two weeks earlier than planned in order to take advantage of the explosion in engagement with news content during the pandemic. The news site had more than 26 million unique visits in March, a record, said Mike Berkley, chief product officer at Axios. Of that web traffic, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Peacock Takes Flight Peacock launched on Wednesday as a free add-on for Comcast Xfinity and X1 Flex subscribers. The NBCU-owned service will launch nationally on July 15 with an ad-supported option and a premium tier at $4.99 per month. NBCU stuck to its original […]

NBCUniversal opened more of its inventory to programmatic platforms on Monday, with a new product integration through FreeWheel and The Trade Desk. FreeWheel, a sister-company of Comcast’s NBCU, is coming out of beta with its “unified decisioning” platform, which operates an auction where programmatic demand is considered alongside direct-sold campaigns for OTT inventory and video […]

  Although the coronavirus pandemic has caused CPMs to plummet, the news isn’t all bad for publishers. How sites have been affected by the coronavirus’s economic impact vary, depending on the type of content they produce and the type of advertisers they attract. Freestar handles the advertising for 300 publishers – from sports (Barstool Sports) […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Bob’s Back Bob Iger is getting sucked back into Disney management after stepping down as CEO in February. Disney’s business is heavily reliant on people gathering – in theme parks, at movie studios, in theaters and on cruise ships. Disney is losing as much […]

Quarantine life for readers of the Betches might look something like this: an evening critiquing the self-quarantining Instagram posts of Bachelor stars while eating delivery, binge-watching reality TV, drinking too much wine and procrastinating an in-home workout in favor of a FaceTime date. So the humor, gossip and lifestyle brand for women quickly adjusted its […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Ad Tech Oscars The 2020 AdExchanger Awards finalists were announced on Thursday. “Best In-House Media Operation” pits some of the best-known brands in the world: Bayer, Disney Parks and Experiences, Sprint, Nestlé and Uber. It’s also no surprise that finalists exhibiting the best […]

People are stuck at home and want to cook. Food52, already a resource for home cooks, is stepping up to meet the soaring demand. That means helping readers make easy quarantine recipes, find the best ingredients to stock their pantry and solving the mysterious shortage of yeast everywhere. Food52’s traffic is up 36% in the […]

Coronavirus shelter-in-place orders have been in place for less than a month nationally, but consumer media habits are already massively changing. Streaming is the clear winner of social distancing. From March 9 to March 16, total streaming time grew to 156.1 billion minutes per day in the United States, compared to 127.6 billion minutes during […]

The advertising department at The New York Times before the coronavirus pandemic is completely different than the one in motion now. The team is working remotely. In-person meetings and planned live events are out. And the hot topics with clients have completely changed. So The New York Times is trying to be helpful as clients […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Unblocked Google and Twitter lifted their bans on coronavirus-related advertising. Twitter will allow marketers to feature their pandemic responses in paid tweets, Ad Age reports. Twitter initially banned COVID terms to forestall misinformation, but now feels that “the messaging that brands and businesses can […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Pretty Good, Eh? File this one under, “Not an April Fools’ joke.” Postmedia, one of the largest Canadian news media conglomerates, is making all of its online content free this month, thanks to a partnership with Mary Brown’s, a fried chicken chain based in […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Paul Bannister, co-founder and executive vice president at CafeMedia. The world is, rightfully so, consumed with the pressing issues surrounding the spread of COVID-19 and economic fallout. That doesn’t change the fact that many […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. True Story Snapchat is finally letting developers integrate its flagship Stories format outside the app. “The social media giant hopes that expanded access to its content and flagship features on other apps will increase its user base – and maybe its bottom line,” Axios […]

This month, during the pandemic’s Great Toilet Paper Shortage, Wirecutter’s December review of the best bidet became one of its most popular articles. But it’s not all about bidets. The New York Times-owned site’s overall traffic and readership is up year over year – in some cases more than 50%. Wirecutter’s affiliate program is also […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Net’ Benefits Netflix investors have been worried about its high costs, unprofitability and increased competition. But that same balance sheet is starting to look like a safe harbor. “In fact, Netflix’s liquidity position and the tailwinds from social distancing combine to give the company […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Games Must Not Go On It’s official: The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be postponed, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member told USA Today. It’s the first time that the Olympic games won’t be held since World War II, though brands and athletes may […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Alison Weissbrot, senior editor at AdExchanger. It’s part of a series of perspectives from AdExchanger’s editorial team. Facebook’s director of product management Rob Leathern tweeted Thursday that the social media […]

Facebook is banning ads for hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and COVID-19 test kits in an effort to prevent price inflation for high-demand health products. On Thursday, Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management, tweeted about the ban and said Facebook will be “ramping” its automated enforcement for problematic COVID-19-related ads and commerce next week. “If […]

2020 was going to be a breakout year for out-of-home media. GroupM forecasted 8% growth in the OOH category this year – the fastest-growing (and only growing) traditional media channel. And digital signage had finally reached meaningful scale and been integrated into major DSPs. While it’s still too early for updated OOH projections, the spread […]

Fox Corporation bought itself a piece of the free ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) action earlier this week with its $440 million acquisition of Tubi. The deal follows Comcast’s acquisition of Xumo in February, reportedly for around $100 million, and Viacom’s (now ViacomCBS’s) $340 million purchase of Pluto TV early last year. There are now […]

The type of content that matters to people has completely shifted as Americans stay home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital media companies are quickly evaluating what’s doing well or falling flat and adjusting their content production strategies. They’re also figuring out how to produce video content and replace live events as their employees […]

Being a working mom was hard enough. Then COVID-19 came along. With schools closed, Andrea Zapata, VP of data innovation and insights at Effectv, Comcast’s cable ad sales group, is pulling data to help clients understand how media will be impacted by COVID-19 one minute while teaching her five- and seven-year-old boys how to read, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Pains Media consumption is spiking almost as fast as the coronavirus is spreading, with people locked in their homes. But TV networks may only see short-term gains as the world faces a recession and production crews are forced to halt filming, […]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied recent reports that it plans to share smartphone location data with the US government to help health authorities track and understand the spread of coronavirus infections. On a call with reporters Wednesday to talk about Facebook’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, which includes a coronavirus information center with real-time health […]