More telecom-media merger mania! Verizon is considering a merger with cable company Charter Communications, according to The Wall Street Journal, just months after AT&T revealed its intent to acquire Time Warner for $85.4 billion. If Verizon and Charter combine, the magnitude would be massive in terms of infrastructure and audience scale, as well as in […]
Addressable TV significantly expanded in 2016, both in terms of ad spend and the total size of the addressable market. In 2015, addressable TV ad spend reached $400 million in the US and grew to $890 million in 2016, according to eMarketer. That’s quadruple the spend flowing into the marketplace in 2014. Last year, more […]
AT&T now has controlling interest in addressable TV platform Invidi, following an investment the telco giant revealed Monday. The exact amount was undisclosed. Prior investor WPP and Dish Network also participated. Although Invidi will remain independent, AT&T, Dish and WPP have collective ownership. An AT&T spokesperson said the telco sees “opportunity for continued expansion in […]
To even the most casual observer, AT&T’s $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner appears to accelerate the multiyear land grab between telcos like Verizon and the media and ad tech hybrids like AOL. Although the deals have obvious similarities – both AT&T and Verizon are mobile carriers seeking to grow subscribers and diversify their infrastructure […]
By Kelly Liyakasa, Sarah Sluis and Allison Schiff Update: AT&T has reached a deal to acquire Time Warner for $85.4 billion. The move gives the telco some seriously premium media assets, including HBO, Warner Bros., CNN, Turner Broadcasting and DC Comics. Yes, AT&T will own Batman. While the telco got a distribution outlet when it merged with DirecTV […]
AT&T, which completed a $49 billion merger with DirecTV last July, is relatively behind competitive carrier Verizon in acquiring (or building) an ad stack and monetizing its mobile data set. AT&T has been largely silent on the mobile data front following its shift away from building a mobile ad network in 2013 in order to prioritize […]
AT&T has officially entered the programmatic TV fray. The carrier on Thursday revealed the launch of a private marketplace called the Video Inventory Platform (“VIP” for short), which Jason Brown, AT&T AdWorks’ VP of national advertising sales, told AdExchanger was a “data-optimized TV and video planning tool.” The product will be generally available in Q3 […]
If Verizon closes its $4.4 billion AOL acquisition, it will mark one more marriage between a telco and an ad tech company. It’s also a harbinger of more to come. Last summer, Australian telco Telstra grabbed a majority stake into streaming video distribution platform Ooyala and then bought video supply-side platform Videoplaza. In 2012, Singapore […]
Plenti, the new American Express-operated loyalty coalition, seeks to streamline the rewards program. The premise is that consumers can gather loyalty points for up to two years from a variety of partner brands, including ExxonMobil, Hulu, Macy’s, Rite Aid, Direct Energy, Nationwide, AT&T and Amex, and can redeem those points across participating Plenti merchants. “The […]
What do telcos and YouTube talent have in common? Not a lot right now, but that will change once video and TV ad budgets converge. Consider the YouTube multichannel network (MCN), Google content partners that are responsible for both production and audience monetization and which get 55% of banner and pre-roll ad revenue. The digital […]
