CTV

The film and TV studio Lionsgate has chosen Comcast’s FreeWheel as its exclusive ad server to help manage and sell the growing volume of ad inventory Lionsgate creates with new FAST channels.

CTV isn’t an emerging channel anymore. It’s a fully established, essential part of the media mix. Advertisers now understand its reach, flexibility and ability to drive measurable outcomes.

Netflix could acquire Warner Bros., unless Paramount swoops in or regulators intervene. How rearranging the streaming leaders could affect the CTV ad business.

Looks like Pinterest has its eyes – or its pins, rather – fixed on connected TV.

On Tuesday, TV advertising company Cadent announced the acquisition of VuePlanner, which specializes in contextual advertising and media planning for YouTube.

Is it too soon to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions? Because I’m setting a goal for myself to start talking to more media planners, agency executives and buy-side experts.

CTV spending is flattening, performance is plateauing and buyers are hesitant to push budgets further. The reason is not complicated. When buyers cannot see what they are buying, they cannot commit their spend with conviction.

Consumers don’t experience media in silos. They might stream a live game on their TV, scroll social feeds during halftime and research products on their mobile device later that night.

Confusion in CTV isn’t a natural byproduct of a maturing market; it’s an outcome of how distributors protect their pricing power.

Social CPMs have risen. The ability to find incremental audiences on social platforms has declined. Add the growing brand-safety concerns, and the equation looks even worse.

Netflix announces a new way to measure viewership; streaming and smart TV companies face data collection investigations; and Polymarket ads incentivized losing bets.

Deli meat company Land O’Frost has been leaning into a new MMM approach to figure out which opportunities it’s been overlooking – or even inhibiting.

CTV has become a powerful full-funnel channel, attracting advertisers of all sizes – and the momentum isn’t slowing.

CTV ad spend is projected to rise another 16% this year to $26.6 billion, according to the IAB. But with rapid growth comes complexity. Advertisers now face a maze of platforms, apps and channels, each with different buying models, audience access and inconsistent measurement. For SMBs without large teams or budgets, this fragmentation is especially challenging to navigate.

Cloudflare restricts how bots can scrape content; TiVo’s customer base stays loyal, even as TiVo leaves the DVR business; and Nestlé announces a stark reduction in headcount.

The layoffs reflect a strategic decision on People Inc.’s part to free up money to invest in growth areas, according to CEO Neil Vogel’s memo to employees.

CleanTap claims that 100% of the invalid traffic it spoofed was accepted into live auctions run by programmatic platforms and was successfully bid on by advertisers.

HUMAN has recently started complementing its bid request analysis by analyzing the time between when a bot clicks an ad and when the landing page loads. Now it’s offering the solution to individual advertisers.

YouTube backpedals on banning COVID and political misinfo; Tylenol pushes back against Trump’s claims that it causes autism; and Disney doubles down on linear TV and raises Disney+ prices after its Kimmel boycott threat.

The old approach to media and measurement is no longer sustainable. AI is now embedded across every step of the media value chain, and AI is only as good as the data it’s fed.

CTV, like digital display before it, is facing fraud and mislabeled information. The prevailing advice for advertisers is to go directly to the networks and streaming platforms. However, buying direct comes with a fraud risk itself.

Concrete findings on how effective QR codes are at driving ad interactions are now available, and some industry best practices are emerging.

GAM’s dinner with ad agencies sparked speculation that Google is preparing to spin off its bundled SSP and ad server as a remedy to its ad tech monopoly. But Google says it’s just part of the trend of SSPs going direct to buyers.

Brands don’t feel secure enough to lock in huge CTV deals outside of live sports. So what happens to all of that nonsports content spread out across streaming channels?

Pause ads are going programmatic, as connected TV ad buying becomes more automated. Plus: how publishers are proposing to be compensated by AI companies – and the odds that they’ll receive what they are asking for.

The American College of Education partnered with performance TV company MNTN to better reach its audience of adults seeking higher education.

The IAB Tech Lab video classification updates introduced much-needed clarity. But valuable inventory, now categorized differently, is being deprioritized or rejected, even though its performance hasn’t changed.

The competitive set has shifted and it’s stacked against independent DSPs. But, instead of chasing what competitors already own, TTD can own what they can’t: trust.

OpenX filed a lawsuit against Google over its anticompetitive practices. And HyphaMetrics claimed victory against Nielsen in court over a patent lawsuit.

The SSP is betting on the DOJ’s antitrust remedies, plus closer relationships with agencies, DSPs and mid-sized advertisers, to help it eat some of Google’s lunch.

CleanTap, an ad tech startup launched by the founder of Method Media Intelligence, wants to separate the wheat from the chaff in CTV by serving as a curation layer between DSPs and SSPs.