ESPN

Disney got some cash back in its pocket after the OpenAI deal fell apart – but the company still plans to lean into AI.

A 2004 statute prevents owning enough TV stations to reach 39% of households. But without the scale afforded to other digital content companies, local TV is at a competitive disadvantage.

Last quarter, Disney’s SVOD services grew 11% year-over-year to more than $5 billion, driven by growth in both subscription and advertising revenue.

YouTube TV launches new skinny TV bundles; anti-ad Substack is testing ads; Google strikes new publisher licensing deals to feed its AI.

Is it just me, or do third-quarter earnings always seem especially strange?

Disney’s Q4 earnings double down on the success of sports streaming content, but the YouTube TV blackout continues.

Ever open the Disney+ app and experience cognitive dissonance when shows like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” appear in the recommendations? Well, expect more of that in the future.

Agencies around the globe weigh in on principal-based buying; live sports are king, but new sports like F1 are having trouble gaining traction; and Adobe gets roasted by Bluesky’s artist community.

NBC, Fubo, Disney-owned ESPN and ad agency Mindshare weigh in on the creative flexibility offered on CTV and whether sports streamers really reach incremental audiences.

Disney’s revenue rose 5% to $24.7 billion last quarter, up from $23.5 billion this time last year. But subscriber growth at The Mouse House looks less promising.

During its earnings call on Thursday morning, Disney announced plans to bring ESPN+ content to Disney+ starting on December 4,

Roku could start running ads every time you pause a blu-ray. Plus, the kickbacks required to play in the retail media market might eventually shut out all but the biggest brands.

In today’s newsletter: The DOJ sues TikTok alleging COPPA violations; Disney wraps a competitive upfronts season as it faces stiller competition for streaming ad budgets; and more than $107 million was spent on ads for AI products in the first half of this year.

The average CTV platform now authorizes 30 SSPs to sell its inventory. And one of the most noticeable effects of increased SSP saturation in CTV has been higher costs due to SSP reselling.

In today’s newsletter: Why Apple’s SKAdNetwork 4.0 is a bust; advertisers are irked by Google’s optimization-driven demand for different creative formats; The Trade Desk releases a baffling list of top 100 publishers.

During Disney’s upfront event on Tuesday, just hours after Amazon’s, the Mouse House couldn’t hold back on pitching its content and advertising prowess. Sports was a big highlight.

Programmers are using their Q1 earnings reports as a dress rehearsal for their upfront pitches. Meanwhile, programmatic platforms, including Magnite and PubMatic, also had upfronts in mind during their Q1 earnings.

Disney is on track for its combined streaming offerings to reach profitability by the end of this year. Continued growth will hinge on bundling its streaming properties and its management of sports media.

Business Insider released a new targeting tool called SAGA reACT that analyzes the emotional reactions its content produces to create actionable, emotion-driven audience segments.

In today’s newsletter: Closing arguments begin in the DOJ vs. Google Search antitrust trial; the sports betting ad bubble might be set to burst; and Etsy struggles to stand out among ecommerce competitors in audience scale and marketing spend.

In today’s newsletter: Sensor Tower acquires mobile marketing analytics and benchmarking rival Data.ai; Minute Media will distribute Sports Illustrated; Apple fields questions at a DMA compliance workshop.

Disney is starting off the year with subscriber losses. But the Mouse House says it’s all part of the plan.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Panel Discussion Bad news for Nielsen: Another panel has entered the arena. Samba TV is teaming up with HyphaMetrics to launch a panel for measuring video viewership across linear, streaming and other digital formats, Ad Age reports. HyphaMetrics plans to use Samba TV’s […]

2023 was the year live sports entered the streaming arena in full force, creating a new form of fragmentation in the process.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Can You Hear Me Now? Consumers wary about targeted ads are convinced their devices are eavesdropping on their conversations. Most marketers insist that’s not the case, and their use of other targeting signals has gotten so sophisticated that it just feels like your […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Watch Party Advertisers and creators have dinged Netflix in the past for its lack of transparency into streaming ratings. Netflix answered critics this week with a surprise data dump – its first real viewership report. The report, which Netflix will release twice a […]

Disney+ added nearly 7 million subscribers last quarter, and, of those, about 2 million new sign-ups were for the streamer’s year-old ad-supported tier. Currently, Disney+ with ads has 5.2 million subscribers.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Disney’s Carriage Ride Disney and Charter resolved their cable carriage dispute on Monday, re-upping Disney-owned networks (namely, ESPN) to Charter’s 15 million subscribers. As part of the deal, Charter’s most popular cable package will include access to the ad-supported tiers of Disney+ and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Pulling The Strings  Disney-owned TV channels went dark on Charter Spectrum last week when the two companies failed to reach an agreement on a new carriage pact, Variety reports. The blackout affected over 25 networks, including ESPN. It was particularly bad timing, too: […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Begun, The Clone War Has The robots are taking over, and publishers are fighting back. A growing list of media outlets are attempting to stop AI bots from copying their content, CNN reports. Last week, The New York Times, Reuters and CNN led […]