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A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Digitally native companies made nearly $1 billion in commitments during this year’s upfront, making them the biggest advertiser category in NBCUniversal’s $7 billion upfront, the company said during its Q2 earnings Thursday. The digitally native category includes the “FAANG” companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) as well as direct-to-consumer companies like Peloton, NBCU’s CEO Steve […]

Comcast’s advertising business is gearing up to run campaigns with Blockgraph, a data-sharing product that uses blockchain technology to allow advertisers to target TV audiences using first-party data. Comcast first mentioned its blockchain advertising ambitions in 2017 at Cannes, and since then the initiative has been incubated by Comcast’s FreeWheel ad tech subsidiary. On Thursday, […]

The two minutes of television inventory sold by multichannel video players (MVPDs) – which can be made addressable by targeting through the set-top box – has historically been fragmented across providers, making it complex for a national advertiser to run addressable campaigns at scale. Today, MVPDs are jockeying to sell each other’s addressable TV supply, […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Disney closed its $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox on Wednesday, more than a year after it signed a definitive agreement to acquire the entertainment company, which at the time was going to cost $52.4 billion. Disney’s initial agreement in December 2017 turned out to be less definitive than the term implies. Comcast stepped […]

FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned video ad tech company, hosted its first television upfront on Wednesday and is mounting a campaign to expand its buy-side business. The marketer outreach centers on new attribution features and the launch of FreeWheel Media, which formalizes its buy-side accounts and ad-serving business into a cohesive offering, CRO Brian Wallach told AdExchanger. […]

Zach Rodgers and Allison Schiff contributed. Comcast is looking to enhance its targeted advertising business by acquiring more ad tech assets, and is evaluating a group of companies that includes Cadent and dataxu, AdExchanger has learned. Comcast is motivated by a range of factors, including stiffer competition from AT&T and its Xandr ad unit as […]

Traditional broadcasters might soon bridge linear and digital ad buying. But first, baby steps. Before anyone reaches that holy grail, it helps if the ad inventory is trafficked through the same system. So in the spirit of unification, the video ad server FreeWheel said Wednesday that it will handle decisioning for NBCUniversal’s digital and linear […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. 5G Whiz This year we’ll see the first wave of commercial 5G cellular networks, which will revolutionize smartphones and the Internet. Although the biggest societal benefits of 5G will come in areas such as remote surgery and connected cars, 5G will also be a […]

If you had “something blockchain related” on your Christmas list this year (And really, who didn’t?), then consider Comcast Cable Advertising your very own Santa Claus. Comcast Corporation’s ad division unveiled Blockgraph on Friday, designed to help media owners and advertisers securely share data for addressable TV advertising. Blockgraph is winding down its pilot phase […]

Last year, Comcast Technology Solutions, a division of Comcast Cable that offers services around video workflow and monetization, zeroed in on the monetization opportunities around OTT. The company stepped up its game even more on Wednesday, when it hired programmatic vet Richard Nunn as VP and GM of ad platform, a business within Comcast Technology […]

The Walt Disney Company has found its happily ever after with Google, not Comcast-owned FreeWheel. After months of speculation, Google said in a blog post that Disney would implement its ad platform across its brands, including Disney, ABC, ESPN, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars. The relationship will span all of Disney’s video and display inventory. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Who To Antitrust? There’s mounting pressure on the Department of Justice to investigate alleged antitrust violations by Comcast-NBCU. The American Cable Association (ACA) published a letter to Makan Delrahim, the DOJ antitrust chief, that said Comcast poses “a much greater threat to competition” than […]

Political advertising has been good to Comcast. Comcast’s cable advertising revenue increased 15.2% to $684 million in Q3, but that bump would have been just 0.6% without political advertising, the company disclosed Thursday. Meanwhile ad revenue at media division NBCUniversal was up (4.2% for its cable networks, 9.2% for broadcast). The increase was attributed to […]

Cold Shower For Market Power Big tech, are your ears burning? On Friday, the Federal Trade Commission held the second in an ongoing series of hearings digging into competition and consumer protection issues. The FTC is trying to update its enforcement and policy agenda in the face of fast-paced technological change. “Technology is no longer […]

Comcast’s strategy has long been to invest in every area where customers get their entertainment or information, so that even if one line of business is affected by changing consumer preferences, another could benefit. Cord cutters, for instance, reduced Comcast’s video business but aided its broadband business. The following are items of interest gleaned from […]

Disney is about to get its own happily ever after with Hulu. Comcast has dropped out of its bidding war for most of Fox’s assets, conceding it to Disney. Disney and Fox shareholders are expected to approve the deal on July 27, USA Today reported. Disney will also gain access to Fox’s Star India network […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Claws Down The bidding war between Comcast and Disney for 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets has finally come to an end, with Comcast backing down after Disney’s $71.3 billion counterbid. Comcast will focus instead on beating Fox to acquire Sky, the British satellite TV […]

The bid has dropped. Comcast on Wednesday again attempted to outmaneuver Mickey and acquire most of 21st Century Fox’s assets with a $65 billion cash offer, putting Disney’s deal in jeopardy. Disney offered Fox a $52.4 billion all-stock deal in December. Comcast wants to disrupt the deal and follow in AT&T’s footsteps: a content distributor […]

Viacom on Monday formed a multi-year agreement with Comcast’s advanced ads business, FreeWheel, to expand its use of the tech platform. Previously, Viacom used FreeWheel to power digital ad decisioning, but now, it will also use FreeWheel’s operating system to manage yield and grow revenue across live TV, set-top box and video-on-demand inventory. In addition, […]

Cable conglomerates Comcast, Charter and Cox Communications said Wednesday they will build ad products that extend across their collective footprint. The three are forming a division within NCC Media – a national cable sales group in which they are joint stakeholders – to build data-driven ad products. Comcast’s advanced ads division, Comcast Media 360, is […]

NBCUniversal is deepening its bench of data-driven executives, revealing on Wednesday that it had hired its first SVP of advertising technology, Ed Kozek. Kozek was previously SVP of ad product and engineering for The Weather Co., where he worked on the audience and data platform WeatherFX. Now he will manage NBCU’s proprietary ad products. NBCU […]

In recent years, enterprise giants like Salesforce, Oracle, IBM and Adobe monopolized M&A activity as each marketing cloud raced to buy their way into ad tech. That tide has turned. These days, strategic acquisitions are more about expanding access to content, audiences and new means of distribution. Just look to media company team-ups like Disney-21st […]

Although cable operators used to be the primary keepers of TV’s distribution and data pipes, the pendulum is swinging toward programmers and smart-TV providers. Addressable inventory is increasing, driven by a surge in smart-TV OEMs licensing their data directly and local TV companies adding data and automation to their sales mixes. Sorenson Media, which is […]

Amazon wants to own a greater chunk of the video supply chain. Its cloud division, Amazon Web Services, released a suite of video tools called AWS Elemental Media Services on Monday, designed to help live and on-demand video content providers manage workflow. It is available only as a managed service for now. “We’re trying to […]

The US Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against AT&T has thrown a wrench into the $108 billion planned merger between the telco and Time Warner. The complaint, filed late Monday, alleged the merger could “hinder [AT&T’s] rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for Time Warner’s networks.” The filing […]

In its short, two-year lifespan, FuboTV, a streaming video service specializing in live sports content, has mostly monetized through paid subscriptions. But after raising a $55 million Series C round in June – and pushing to grow subscribers for its new skinny bundle, Fubo Premier – it’s turned its attention to its tech stack. FuboTV […]

As NBCUniversal’s portfolio has evolved, so has its sales pitch to brand marketers. When NBCU merged its linear and digital sales teams in 2015 and combined all its content groups, its client partnerships team assumed a greater role within its sales organization. That team, led by client partnerships EVP Ali Tarrant, became the broadcaster’s conduit […]

Blockchain, an unmodifiable and unbreachable digital ledger, was conceived 10 years ago to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin. But it has since seeped into new categories, jumping from finance to health care and, more recently, digital advertising. It’s doing so with the backing of big companies like IBM and Comcast, as well as smaller startups like […]