NBCUniversal

NBCU will be taking over FreeWheel; Instacart is for sale (and DoorDash is interested); and is your smart TV listening to you?

NBCUniversal might find itself in a pretty enviable position when it finally spins off from Comcast next year, judging from the third quarter earnings report the company posted on Thursday.

NBCU, FreeWheel, Carat and Newton Research join forces for agentic AI CTV buys; Monday Night Football gets flooded with Texas Senate ads; and justifying “preferred by cats” in pet food ads.

In the modern streaming landscape, everything old is new again. At least that’s the case for NBCUniversal, which is trying to bring back bundled distribution deals and appointment viewing.

In a world being agentically orchestrated at scale, human judgment is the indispensable guardrail preventing us from optimizing right over the cliff.

Comcast separates NBCUniversal and Sky from its broadband and wireless business; Omnicom is all in on M&A; and startup Whatnot bets on livestreamed shopping.

For the first time, Omnicom can directly compare ad frequency and performance across multiple major streamers, which typically prefer to keep data locked inside their walled gardens.

NBCUniversal successfully called its shot with the nickname “Legendary February.”

Someday soon, marketers may be able to pay NBCUniversal to have an AI-generated approximation of “Real Housewives” executive producer Andy Cohen namedrop their brand to hundreds of thousands of fans.

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.