Month: January 2023

The streamer added 5 million subs, helped drive a 4% gain in advertising for NBCUniversal’s media unit, to $2.86 million, and more than doubled its overall revenue, but its losses rose by 75% YoY, to
$978 million

Is linear TV dying? Netflix executives have said this may happen in five to ten
years.

However, for all the complaints about live, linear TV  — in terms of the increasing uncertainty of measurement as well as viewership erosion — it still
retains a strong level of national TV advertising dollars, something that digital media platforms constantly look to loosen.

Bernstein Research says it comes down to
sport TV. “Amazingly, linear TV ad dollars have remained mostly flat despite collapsing audiences, as increasing CPMs offset declining viewership. These dollars seem to be
concentrated within live sports as the last stand of linear TV.”

But its time could be coming to an end. 

This just-completed NFL
regular season had Amazon Prime Video streaming its first-ever exclusive “Thursday Night Football” package.

More recently, YouTube just struck a major deal for NFL Sunday
Ticket, one of the league’s prized packages, which consists of out-of-market games subscribers choose to view. 

Mark Shmulik, media analyst of Bernstein Research,
says; “Over time, we feel that the main beneficiaries will remain in CTV, specifically within AVOD platforms (Netflix, Disney+, and YouTube).”

But
let’s not get ahead of ourselves. “2023 is likely to be challenged for this space given the high cyclicality of brand-based video ads,” Shmulik says. 

“We could see significant pricing declines in the video market as the streamers all open a glut of inventory and demand does not shift fast enough to fulfill
it.”

He adds: “It may take a recession like the one we appear to be heading toward to be the catalyst for shifting the stubborn TV ad dollars away from “Mad
Men” to the keyboard jockeys, in a similar fashion to the death of printing ads back in 2008.”

Bernstein says that looking at the compounded average yearly growth
rate from 2009 to 2022, there was a TV viewership decline of 2.6% per rate — (Really, is that all?) while all the while, TV ad revenue grew at an average 1.8% per year. That is stubborn, for
sure.

What isn’t factored in here — for those that matter — is what advertising share legacy TV-based media companies will have down the line factoring in their
streaming/digital businesses and what digital-first companies will pull away.

What play does legacy TV networks have? They would say transitioning from live, linear TV
networks to their owned-streaming and digital services — coupled with their first-party platform data — are all reasons to keep sending advertising dollars in their
direction.

Digital versus traditional media? It’s not either or.  Look for a continued synthesis of both areas. 

A
potential for some heavy-duty legacy/digital media mergers is probably on the horizon.

Will this come from the strong sports TV factor? Game on.  

Led by “Stranger Things,” Netflix tallied 11 of the top 15 streaming programs and the top four overall, according to Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings, including shows from Netflix, Amazon Prime
Video, Disney+, Apple TV+ and Hulu. Disney+ had three series in the top 15 — original movie “Encanto,” acquired series’ “Bluey” and “The Simpsons.”

Fast food giant McDonald’s latest campaign in Eastern Europe focuses on relaying the brand’s appeal to less likely audiences. The appeal of the “Golden Arches” to people of varied social outlooks is showcased across three 30-second films created by TBWALatvia. Titled “Too Cool For McDonald’s,” each spot focuses on an individual–an intellectualist, a goth and…

“Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History” searches for the truth, but it might also be an assault on fun. And that’s no fun at all!

As the creator economy matures, more reliable metrics should emerge for marketers. But, marketers say, it’s still a challenge to make informed decisions when picking creators to work with. Data about whether a creator’s audience syncs with a brand’s customers, or whether the creator receives sufficient interactions on their posts, is hard to come by….

The AI chatbot has stoked fears of an educational apocalypse. Some teachers see it as the reboot education sorely needs.

The clamor to split up Google’s ad-tech business got a lot louder (and more specific) this week. And while divesting its ad tech units will certainly shake up the display ad ecosystem, not all the outcomes would necessarily be beneficial for marketers. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is pursuing a divestiture of Google’s sell-side ad…

Various brands across the plant-based meat sector have stirred up controversy with their marketing in hopes of generating debate and making consumers think hard about their diets and the benefits of cutting out animal meat. However, one such brand became more controversial than it expected, despite aiming to highlight how its products could bring cultures…

The Arctic Circle city of Rovaniemi, Finland is known for a few things: the mythical home of Santa Claus, stunning wintry landscapes and Modernist designs by influential architect Alvar Aalto. The latter two are the inspiration behind an unusual design project from electric car brand Polestar. The company reimagined a car showroom by building a…