Month: February 2025

While gross additions in 2024 exceeded cancellations – 173.3 million vs. 147.8 million – the cancellation rate grew over the gross additions rate the previous year. Churn is stabilizing somewhat in
the near term.

While FAST is growing, challenges remain – especially with cross-platform measurement, and changes advertisers and brands might need to make with underperforming ad inventory from local linear TV to
local OTT TV.

Just like the crew of the starship Enterprise, the Oscars are about to venture into their own final frontier: streaming television. On March 2, Hollywood’s pre-eminent awards show returns to ABC for its 97th edition–and the first that will be livestreamed on multiple digital platforms, including Hulu, Fubo, and AT&T TV. It’s an evolution that…

A federal judge has dismissed a complaint alleging that Google’s YouTube and TikTok failed to remove videos promoting “choking challenges” and other dangerous activity.

Commerce media is having a moment — and with a market expected to exceed $112 billion in 2025, according to the Winterberry Group, it’s easy to see why. But people keep mixing up retail media and connected commerce, casually swapping one buzzword for the other. They share some DNA, but conflating them is like mistaking the cashier for the entire store.

Here’s why commerce media is its own beast, and how marketers are finally waking up to it. 

WTF is connected commerce?

Connected commerce is the holy grail of seamless shopping, blending online and offline experiences so shoppers can browse and buy wherever they are. Think of it as a fully integrated ecosystem: tying together everything happening on the retailer’s site or app with the behind-the-scenes data and tech driving transactions, then layering that into the in-store experience right down to the cooler screens and promotional offers.

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Away from headlines discussing the fissures between government and Big Tech, particularly those with a trans-Atlantic bent, representatives of the digital ad industry are attempting to woo policymakers by underlining their economic impact on the region.

Google is poised to face fresh charges, this time for breaching the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The news comes hot on the heels of antitrust authorities in Germany investigating Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework. Both investigations’ primary concern is whether Apple and Google’s policies favor their own technologies over those of third parties. 

In Germany, authorities have asked if Apple’s ATT treats third-party data differently from its own, granting itself advantages in the ad market while enforcing stricter restrictions on competitors. Meanwhile, the pan-European investigation will reportedly probe if it favors its vertical search engines, such as Google Shopping, Google Flights, and Google Hotels, over rivals.

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Podcast subscription businesses are maturing. As podcasters continue to develop this revenue stream, they face a challenge that publishers have grappled with for years: churn.

It was a topic that came up at last week’s On Air Fest podcast business summit. More podcast subscription offerings are hitting annual milestones, meaning more data is coming in, and podcasters can start tracking how many subscribers they’re able to retain year over year.

Churn is “certainly becoming an increasing priority, particularly for some of our longer-lived subscriptions,” said David Stern, founder and CEO at Supporting Cast, Slate Group’s podcast subscription hosting business.

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Liner, a South Korean AI search engine, has been testing ads in the U.S. and Europe using a traditional cost-per-click model. But unlike Perplexity, which is working to attract advertisers with a CPM model, Liner thinks CPC is still more measurable.

The company is currently testing three formats: ads that show up above and below an AI-generated answer and another ad format called “generative ads” that shows up within an answer. Tests for ads began last year in the U.S., with generated ad tests since earlier this year.

“We had this kind of hypothesis,” Liner founder and CEO Luke Kim told Digiday. “In digital ads, there are search ads and display ads. Search ads are a good business because the conversion rate is high. Display ads are a good business because it has a lot of impressions and a lot of views because you can put banners anywhere. Maybe we can create some kind of third category, which is AI search ads.”

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Rondrell Moore told WTHI viewers that “It’s time” in a social post announcing his departure from the Terre Haute CBS and Fox affiliate. Saying his last newscast will be on Thursday, he added, “I can say this is MY decision. However, it was an incredibly difficult one to make. I cannot say thank you ALL…

One day after announcing a programming overhaul that saw Joy Reid exiting the network, MSNBC is said to to be instituting widespread layoffs. In a joint statement posted to social media, the WGA East and MSNBC Union claim that the network intends to cut 99 union employees across nine different shows. “This devastating news comes…