Month: February 2025

The squeeze on agency holding companies keeps getting tighter. WPP’s year-end revenue slump, paired with lackluster outlook for 2025, is just the latest twist in an ongoing identity crisis for legacy ad giants. In fact, things have gotten so dire that holdco CEOs have mastered a specialized dialect, one designed to downplay their troubles while keeping investors from panicking.

Here’s a guide to what they say versus what they really (might) mean.

What they say: “We are in a period of transformation.”
What they mean: “We have no idea how to fix this, but we’ll throw around words like ‘AI’ and ‘efficiency’ until the next earnings call.”

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How does a Gold Card for the right Russian oligarchs connect with the Oscars? Consider “Anora,” about a stripper’s encounter with an oligarch’s son.

This week on “Uncanny Valley,” our hosts talk about three big stories from February.

Tom Cibrowksi has been named CBS News president and executive editor, reporting to Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS News and Television Stations and CBS Media Ventures. In this role, announced today, Cibrowski will oversee CBS News, including newsgathering, all units and shows. Cibrowski is currently the president and general manager of ABC owned…

Google, Meta Platforms and Apple say Section 230 protects them from claims that they promoted illegal gambling by processing payments to casino apps.

John Halley, the president of advertising at Paramount, wants publishers to work with multiple identity solutions. While speaking at The Trade Desk’s FWD25 event in New York on Feb. 27, Halley encouraged publishers to adopt more flexibility in integrating with media buyers’ preferred identity solutions. “The future of advertising is not going to be dependent…

Internally called Orion, GPT-4.5 is OpenAI’s largest model to date, and it’s only available through the company’s $200 monthly ChatGPT subscription.

“Apple’s intervention at this late stage would cause substantial unfair prejudice,” antitrust enforcers argue in a brief filed Wednesday with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

CBS Mornings’ Gayle King has accepted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to head to space as part of the all-women crew aboard an upcoming Blue Origin flight. King shared her historic news on Thursday’s edition of the morning show. “I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time,” she said. “It’s like…

Eye on CBS News: A week after the departure of Adrienne Roark to Tegna, CBS News has brought in Tom Cibrowski to lead the news organization as its president and executive editor. Reporting to Wendy McMahon, Cibrowski will oversee CBS News’ newsgathering, units, and shows. “Journalism and storytelling are what CBS News does the best,”…