NBCUniversal

Wall Street is falling out of love with SaaS; OpenAI has an “ads integrity” unit; and the Super Bowl is getting more personalized.

Sports content is a significant part of NBCUniversal’s streaming growth, and political tensions could impact its upcoming broadcasts.

2026 is going to be a big year for NBCUniversal. Not only will it play host to the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, it’s also going to broadcast the Super Bowl, the NBA Playoffs, the regular MLB season on NBC and the FIFA World Cup on Telemundo.

Comcast has had a pretty rough go of it lately – but there’s still plenty of room for a turnaround.

Magnite’s SpringServe deal illustrates why SSPs need a video ad server; Google grapples with AI search’s impact on publisher traffic; and Anthropic’s AI assistant is a law enforcement snitch.

Now that all the dust and confetti has settled after the upfronts, negotiations between marketers, agencies, networks and streamers are only just getting started.

Parts of Comcast might be struggling, but the company still feels “well-positioned” in advance of the TV upfronts in May, according to CFO Jason Armstrong.

On Wednesday, AD-ID announced a partnership with Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS), a division of Comcast Cable that develops buying and planning products for advertisers.

Juice manufacturer Welch’s – founded 156 years ago in 1869 – barely spends any of its marketing budget on traditional media, including linear TV.

The advertising industry is abuzz with the potential of shoppable television. But the concept of buying something directly from your television isn’t new; it began back in the ’80s with channels like QVC and HSN.

Antitrust regulation has counterintuitively favored the biggest ad industry players. Plus, another streaming service, anyone?

A class-action lawsuit was filed this week against French game studio Ubisoft. Plus, expect Trump to pull back on regulating AI.

The US v. Google antitrust trial is over, but nobody’s done with the drama. Plus, Charter just struck a deal with NBCUniversal.

Advanced audience targeting is perhaps the most significant change in TV ad buying structures, says Alison Levin, NBCUniversal’s president of advertising and partnerships, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.

Some brands are turning away from larger media agencies in favor of smaller, independently run shops. Plus, licensing sports content is Reddit’s next revenue diversification play.

The Chrome Privacy Sandbox team is stuck within a Catch-22. Plus, why haven’t media buyers bought more into alternative currencies?

In today’s newsletter: SSPs lead the way on ad tech’s M&A resurgence; Disney rolls back CPMs to court more streaming ad demand; and why dating apps struggle to grow and monetize their audiences.

In today’s newsletter: Companies looking to sell data target the US market; which media companies to bet on at TV upfronts; and generative AI data licensing is the new publisher revenue stream.

To fill in the gaps left by third-party data loss, Adobe has added a data collaboration product to its Real-Time CDP that lets advertisers match their data to a partner’s to create lookalike audiences, target ads or attribute campaigns.

In today’s newsletter: Big Tech may be best positioned to take advantage of generative AI’s ad tech uses; ad tech leaders waffle on investing in Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox; Google faces an innovator’s dilemma.

In today’s newsletter: Ad tech data can compromise Americans; Reddit has a hard road ahead revenue wise; CTV ad-buying startup tvScientific raises a funding round.

In today’s newsletter: Uber, the New York Times and Roblox all have ads businesses, but in different flavors; Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery plan to launch a sports streaming service; and Amazon gets introspective in response to competition from Temu, Shein and TikTok.

In today’s newsletter: Netflix is the only profitable streaming service; Meta’s automated support software frustrates advertisers; and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission may designate Amazon a “distributor of goods.”

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Board Games The LG Ads board of directors has three new members. Or, more accurately, two previous board members – Alphonso co-founders Ashish Chordia and Lampros Kalampoukas, who were fired as part of an orchestrated corporate coup in late December 2022 – have […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ring Airer Netflix is paying more than $5 billion for the rights to livestream “WWE Raw,” Variety reports. The 10-year deal is effective starting next January and represents Netflix’s biggest push into live content. Following a live sports debut with its “Netflix Cup” […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Don’t Look For Me The FTC isn’t slowing its crackdown on location data brokers. On Thursday, it issued a complaint against InMarket for failing to obtain informed consent from users on its own apps and third-party apps that use InMarket’s SDK before collecting […]

NBCUniversal is kicking off the new year with a programmatic progress report during CES in Las Vegas this week.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Addressable Auspices Traditional TV advertisers are hesitant to try addressable products because they’re expensive and hard to scale. But programmatic TV ad buying is making addressable more accessible, said Sara Wallace, FreeWheel’s senior director of product management, speaking at an event on Wednesday […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Location, Location, Location The FTC’s consumer privacy case against Kochava is back on the docket. Last year, the consumer watchdog accused the mobile app analytics platform of selling users’ geolocation data in an open market. However, the presiding judge threw out the FTC’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Variation On A Theme Google launched a new Performance Max search feature called “search themes,” a rare opportunity to learn from the black box that is PMax campaigns. Search themes are broad terms that can inform targeting, even if the company doesn’t bid […]