In this week’s Week in Review: Bertelsmann pauses its merger plans, S4 passes £1 billion in revenues, and Channel 4 experiments with less cluttered ad breaks. Top Stories Bertelsmann CEO Pauses Plans for TV Mega MergersThomas Rabe, CEO of European media giant Bertelsmann, told the Financial Times this week that he’s putting plans to create national TV giants via mergers between European broadcasters on hold. In recent years Bertelsmann has attempted to sell its French TV business M6 to fellow French broadcaster TF1, and to merge Dutch broadcasters RTL Nederland and Talpa Network. Rabe has prev ..read more

“Brands aren’t buying very intelligently,” says Brian O’Kelley, Co-Founder and CEO of Scope3. “They’re paying the same regardless of attention and regardless of carbon.” According to Scope3 and Lumen’s research, shifting that ad spend towards lower carbon and higher attention benefits the entire ecosystem. In this interview, O’Kelley also explains how publishers can adapt to this shift, by changing the way they auction ads to reduce carbon, and repositioning ads to increase attention. The result is a win-win for brands, publishers and the planet. Filmed at New Video Frontiers 2023 in London ..read more

There’s a lot that Wall Street is missing about the streaming business says Tom Rogers, the media mogul best known as the founder of CNBC and MSNBC. The stock market is overly focussed on streaming subscription counts and profitability of streaming, while ignoring the fact that many companies running streaming services are simultaneously dealing with the deterioration of “the best media model known to man”. In this interview, Rogers outlines what Wall Street is getting wrong about streaming, and why Netflix is in “a lane of its own” in the streaming wars. Filmed at New Video Frontiers 2023 in ..read more

The UK government this morning released a draft version of its proposed Media Bill, an update to old broadcasting legislation which is designed to better protect UK public service broadcasters against the threat of international streaming giants. For public service broadcasters (the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, STV and S4C), the bill relaxes a few of the more restrictive requirements currently placed on them, while also working to ensure they remain prominent and easily accessible in the wider TV landscape. Meanwhile for the streaming giants, the bill introduces new requirements, meaning th ..read more

German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 today announced it is sharpening its focus on its entertainment business, which encompasses its traditional TV business, its streaming efforts, and its production studios Seven.One Studios. And the broadcaster says that Joyn, its hybrid streaming service initially co-founded with Discovery but now wholly owned by ProSieben, is at the heart of this strategic refocus. Given the current tough advertising market, and the long-term decline in traditional TV ad revenues, it might be tempting for broadcasters to focus their efforts on alternative revenue streams. Con ..read more

For those who weren’t able to pick up a physical copy at New Video Frontiers last week, we’re delighted today to be launching the digital edition of the Future of FAST Guide 2023. You can download your free copy here. Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) is seeing high adoption amongst consumers, advertisers, and media owners in America, and now we’re starting to see the format take off in Europe too. This guide lays out the basics of FAST advertising, highlighting the major opportunities and challenges associated with the format, and outlining the key decisions which media owners and advert ..read more

The Association of Online Publishers (AOP) has today issued an open letter to advertisers and ad agencies calling for an end to publisher intellectual property (IP) theft, whereby ad tech vendors excessively scrape metadata from publishers’ websites. The AOP says this practice, when done without publishers’ consent, amounts to a theft of publishers’ IP, putting publishers’ sustainability at risk. The AOP specifically called out content verification vendors, which have privileged access to publishers’ web page data in order to verify ad placement and quality to buyers. Publishers have specific ..read more

In this week’s Week in Review: Mail Metro Media launches a vertical video offering, Ofcom sets new ground rule for the BBC, and what’s old is new for DAZN as it launches a linear broadcast channel. Top Stories Mail Metro Media Launches Vertical Video OfferingUK publishing group Mail Metro Media, which sells ad inventory across the Daily Mail & General Trust’s portfolio, is launching a new vertical video commerce offering across Mail Online and Metro. The new offering is launched in partnership with video commerce vendor Firework. Mail Online and Metro will display a carousel of short video ..read more

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the problems at Credit Suisse and the $30bn injection by several major banks into First Republic has brought the topic of the fragility of the banking system back into focus. While the causes of the problems are different – SVB is a result of an old-fashioned bank run after it failed to raise sufficient new funds, Credit Suisse has been hit after disclosures in its annual report about its accounting issues and risk factor and First Republic is  the contagion effect – the effect has been to raise concerns about whether there will be a domino effect. Fo ..read more

One of the strengths of connected TV advertising is its ability to capture viewers’ attention. The fact that ads are full screen and sound-on by default, and that they sit in the middle of premium content, means users can’t just quickly scroll past ads like they might in web or mobile environments. Of course, the living room environment has its own challenges for attention – namely that viewers might start using a different device once an ad break begins, or leave the room entirely. Thus, it makes intuitive sense that not all CTV ad formats of channels will be equally effective at capturing at ..read more