In this week’s Week in Review: YouTube scales back its Originals, European Parliament approves new tracking curbs, and ProSieben shutters its channel-based TV apps in favour of Joyn.
Top Stories
YouTube Massively Scales Back Investment in Original Series
YouTube will massively scale back its investment in original series, chief business officer Robert Kyncl announced this week. Going forward, YouTube will now only invest in shows which are part of its Black Voices or YouTube Kids funds – as well as honouring any commitments already made to other content.
YouTube launched its YouTube Originals division in 2016, an effort to compete on the premium content front. But the video platform never really seemed able to make a success of its longer form content. At first most original shows were only available for subscribers to YouTube’s premium service, though YouTube changed tack and made its original content ad funded in 2019, with rumours flying that subscriber numbers were low.
The company already killed off its scripted shows in 2018, despite the critical success of Karate Kid reboot Cobra Kai. Now YouTube says investment will be funnelled to other initiatives, including payments for creators on its TikTok-like short form hub Shorts.
EU Parliament Formally Backs New Curbs on Ad Targeting
European Parliament this week formally backed a number of new curbs on use of data in digital advertising in a key plenary vote on the EU’s upcoming Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA). Parliament voted in favour of a ban on dark patterns, a ban on profiling of minors, and a ban on use of sensitive personal data being used in ad targeting.
All of the above could have a significant impact on the ad industry, depending on their exact implementation. IAB Europe for example has warned there’s a risk that standards for judging whether a user is likely to be a minor or not could be set too high. “If a robust, reliable and affordable method of age verification cannot be used, these measures could potentially amount to a full ban on targeted advertising,” said IAB Europe in a blog post.
ProSiebenSat.1 to Close TV Channel Apps to Prioritise Joyn Streaming Service
ProSiebenSat.1 has announced that it is closing its individual channel and brand apps, in order to prioritise its streaming service, Joyn.
Joyn is run in conjunction with Discovery and has around 100 primetime formats available on the platform. Executives have made clear that in future, Joyn will be the destination for anyone wishing to consume ProSiebenSat.1’s brands.
“In recent months, we have put our digital offer and the digital platforms on which we play out our content to the test. In the future, anyone who wants to experience content from our channel brands ProSieben, SAT.1, Kabel Eins or sixx on smart TVs, tablets or smartphones will not be able to avoid Joyn,” says Wolfgang Link executive board member of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE and CEO Seven.One Entertainment Group.
The first app to be removed is the science offering Galileo. All the apps will be removed by this Spring, with the exceptions of ran and Zappn in Austria and Switzerland.
The Week in Tech
States Allege That Google and Facebook Execs Conspired To Manipulate Ad Auctions
Google and Facebook’s chief executives oversaw a deal which saw ad auctions manipulated in Google’s favour, alleges a lawsuit brought by a group of US state attorneys. The lawsuit, led by Texas, alleges that the two companies conspired in 2018, with a particular focus on header bidding.
OpenX CEO Rules Out 2022 IPO
John Gentry, OpenX’s CEO has ruled out an initial public offering for the programmatic ad company in the near future. Gentry told AdExchanger that the earliest that OpenX would pursue an IPO is 18 to 24 months from now. He said the company had other priorities, like investing in its products, that it wanted to prioritise.
Chinese State Signals Intent to Crack Down Further on Platform Monopolies
The Chinese central government has signaled its intent to crackdown on internet platform monopolies in a series of directives. The policy document was published on the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) website and called for the revision of legislation relating to monopolies and data security in data-driven online platforms, as well as stronger supervision over areas such as advertising and tax reporting.
Google to Work to Improve Ads Targeted at Children
Google has said that it will work to improve its enforcement of its age-sensitive ad targeting, after Reuters found that children were being served inappropriate ads in the search engine. Google modified its settings for younger users in response to UK regulations aimed at protecting children from being tracked online. The ads that Reuters found being served to children included those for sex toys, alcohol and high-risk trading.
Good-Loop Launches Green Watermark for Climate Friendly Ads
Ethical ad-tech platform Good-Loop has launched a green watermark to indicate to consumers if an ad is environmentally friendly. The free watermark can be displayed on any campaign creative being tracked using its Green Ad Tag – a tracking pixel that enables brands to measure and offset the carbon cost of their online campaigns in real time.
Dunnhumby Launches Dunnhumby Sphere
Dunnhumby has launched dunnhumby Sphere, an all-in-one retail media platform. The platform is aimed at retailers looking to build and expand their retail media capabilities. Tesco already uses dunnhumby Sphere in the UK to power several of their retail media products in their Media and Insight platform, which was launched late last year.
The Week in TV
BBC Licence Fee To Be Abolished in 2027
The UK digital, culture, media and sport minister Nadine Dorries has announced that the government intends to abolish the BBC licence fee in 2027. The minister also said that the licence fee would be frozen for the next two years after which it will rise with inflation – amounting to a substantial cut in real terms given current high levels of inflation. Dorries said that this six-year deal would be the last.
Netflix Reports Slowing Subscriber Growth in Q4 2021 Results
Netflix saw its shares drop 20 percent to its lowest levels since June 2020 after it reported its Q4 2021 results. Netflix added 8.28 million global paid net subscribers in the fourth quarter. It beat analysts’ expectations of 8.19 million, but it was fewer than the 8.5 million added in the same quarter in 2020. It also forecast that it would only add 2.5 million subscribers in Q1 2022, far below the 3.98 million it added in Q1 2021
Sky AdSmart Launches Addressable Sponsor Credits
Sky is launching a new tool, which will allow brands to swap out their sponsor idents according to different audiences. The tool will use AdSmart technology to allow advertisers to tailor their sponsor credits through Sky’s third party data or their own first-party customer data. The example that Sky Media gave of how the technology could be used was that a car brand could change the car model featured depending on the affluence or life-stage of the household.
Netflix Expands Sport Content- But With No Live Sport
Netflix has already become a destination for Formula 1 fans, and it is now creating similar content for fans of the PGA Tour and professional tennis. None of this content is live sport, instead Netflix is emulating hit F1 docuseries Drive to Survive. The documentary series followed the stars of the sport behind-the-scenes, and isn’t shown until months after the results are known.
DAZN Launches Production Studio
Sports-streaming platform DAZN has launched its own production arm, DAZN Studios. The sports-streamer has been pushing into original content. It has unveiled titles including Maradona: The Fall, examining Diego Maradona’s fall from grace following the 1994 World Cup and Green Lions, looking at Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup.
NBCUniversal Says It Will Cover “Geopolitical Context” of Beijing Olympics
NBCUniversal says it will include the “geopolitical context” as a part of its Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics coverage. The broadcaster has come under pressure from rights groups and a congressional committee to cover China’s rights abuses as part of its coverage. The US is carrying out a diplomatic boycott of the games for what it says are rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region.
ITV Secures Premiership Rugby Rights
ITV has secured rights to show live Premiership Rugby matches and a weekly highlights programme up until the end of the 2023-24 season on its free-to-air offering. In future seasons, a total of seven matches, including the final, will be shown on ITV. BT Sport will continue to show live matches every weekend, and will simulcast the ITV games.
Five Million Brits Spend Full Working Day on VoD Services, Says Report
Five million British people are currently spending seven or more hours, the equivalent of a full working day, on streaming services, says news research from digital experience specialist Acquia. It also found that 6.9 million were watching streaming services through a smart TV.
Report Finds European M&A Spree Prompted by Streaming and the Pandemic
A report by the European Audiovisual Observatory has found that M&A activity has been boosted by the pandemic and the increased popularity of streaming. The report found that growth in the audiovisual sector was driven by the private sector, with over 75 percent of the incremental revenues cumulatively delivered by pure SVoD players alone (Netflix, Amazon and DAZN).
NENT Group Named as a Top Sustainability Performer
Nordic Entertainment (NENT) Group has been named as a top sustainability performer by Sustainalytics, a global sustainability research, ratings and data firm. In the global media industry NENT Group was ranked tenth out of 299 companies. The media group was awarded a “Top-Rated” badge in both its industry and region by Sustainalytics.
2021 Was the Biggest Ever Year for ITV Hub, Says Broadcaster
ITV has reported that consumption hours on its VOD service ITV Hub increased by 27 percent year-on-year in 2021. The broadcaster credits scheduling innovations like making soaps available ahead of transmission, and programming like Love Island, the Euro 2020 football championships, and one-off events such as Oprah with Megan and Harry, and An Audience with Adele.
The Week For Publishers
ByteDance Revenues Grew 70 Percent in 2021
TikTok-owner ByteDance saw total revenues grow by 70 percent year-on-year in 2021 according to Reuters – impressive growth which nonetheless represents a slowdown compared to 2020, when revenues grew 100 percent. ByteDance’s 2021 was hampered in part by the Chinese government’s increased regulatory efforts, which caused ByteDance to downscale its investment arm.
The Sun and The Daily Mail Top UK Audience Metrics
The Sun has the biggest total reach of all UK news brands according to Pamco data, while The Daily Mail receives the most overall engagement. The Sun reaches a total of 28.2 million adults per month across all platforms and print – 2.1 million more than the Mail. But UK audiences spend 5.2 billion minutes per month with The Daily Mail, compared with three billion for The Sun.
Bloomberg and Twitter Partner for Curated Crypto Content
Bloomberg and Twitter has launched a new partnership which will see Bloomberg curate exclusive crypto-related content under its @crypto handle on Twitter. Bloomberg will use Twitter’s engagement data to pick out content and bring clarity to crypto conversations happening on the platform.
News Site Traffic Continued to Fall in December
News site traffic continued to fall year-on-year in December, though the fall was softer than in the previous month according to analysis from Press Gazette. CNN saw a particularly big fall with traffic down 27 percent year-on-year, attributed to the fact that traffic was particularly high in 2020 due to the US presidential election.
Nearly Seven in Ten Believe Journalists are Lying to Them
PR firm Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer found that over two-third of consumers (67 percent) believe that journalists and new reporters purposefully try to mislead audiences, up eight percent on Edelman’s previous report. Social media is seen as the least trusted news source overall.
Reddit Revamps Blocking Feature
Reddit has reworked its feature which allows users to block other users of the platform, a move designed to give Redditors more control over their on-platform safety. Previously when one user blocked another, the blocked user could still see content from the person who blocked them. This update means that now when one user blocks another, neither will see each other’s posts and content.
The Week For Agencies
Interpublic Group was Top Stock Performer of the Big Four in 2021
Interpublic Group’s stock performed best out of the ‘big four’ agency holding groups in 2021, according to Campaign’s analysis of Bloomberg data. IPG’s share price grew by 59 percent as it covered from the pandemic, compared to 45 percent for Publicis, 40 percent for WPP, and 17 percent for Omnicom.
M&C Saatchi says FCA Probe Dropped
M&C Saatchi, recently a target of an unwanted takeover bid by its largest investor, has raised its profit outlook for 2021, and said that a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigation into accounting discrepancies, with the FCA deciding not to take any enforcement action.
Video Budgets Strong in Q4 2021 Despite Omicron Challenges
A net balance of seven percent of marketers told the IPA that they increased their video budgets in Q4 2021, as reported in the latest Bellwether Report. Video was the strongest performer out of the media categories measured by the IPA. The quarterly report asks marketers to break down their budget spending over the past three months. A net balance of 6.1 percent of marketers reported that they are revising up their budgets. This represents a slowing of the growth from the previous quarter (Q3 2021), which saw a net balance of 12.3 percent of marketers upping their budgets. Read the full story on VideoWeek.
Expedia Eyes Travel Rebound with Super Bowl Ad
Travel brand Expedia says that its ads for this year’s Super Bowl are a sign of confidence in the travel sector’s recovery, according to an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Travel has been one of the slowest sectors to see ad spend pick up post-pandemic, but Expedia Brands president Jon Gieselman says Expedia wants to capitalise on pent-up consumer demand.
Small Businesses Want Alternative to Tracking-Based Advertising
Research conducted by YouGov on behalf of Amnesty International and Global Witness found that 75 percent of small and medium business leaders believe tracking-based advertising is invasive and undermines human rights. And 69 percent of those surveyed said that while they are uncomfortable with Google and Facebook’s influence, they feel they have no choice but to advertise through them.
UK Government Strengthens Rules on Crypto Ads
The UK government says it plans to place stricter rules on ads for cryptoassets, bringing crypto ads more in line with other financial ads. The government has launched a consultation on proposals which would see crypto ads subject to standards set by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Sorrell Launches Fund for Ad Tech, CTV, and the Metaverse
Sir Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital, has launched a new venture capital firm called S4S Ventures, which will invest in ad tech, martech, data technology, and emerging digital media and content. The fund will be particularly interested in companies which will accelerate the development of programmatic tech across CTV and gaming, as well as tools for monetisation in the metaverse.
JPMorgan Forecasts Busy Year for Agency New Business
JPMorgan predicts that 2022 will be a hectic year for agencies securing new business, with the amount of business changing hands expected to match 2021, Campaign reported this week.
IAB UK Picks UNLIMITED to Advertise Digital Advertising
IAB UK has picked agency UNILIMTED to run a campaign which will firstly gauge how brands feel about digital advertising, and then seek to shift perceptions and encourage brands to feel proud about investing in digital ads. “There is a pervasive narrative that digital can’t build brands or bring advertisers stories to life in the same way as other media,” said IAB UK CEO Jon Mew. “This project will allow us to interrogate that assumption, understand how marketers truly feel about digital and, ultimately, how we can reset established thinking and encourage advertisers to feel proud investing in digital.”
Hires of the Week
Shay Segev To Become DAZN’s Sole CEO, While Darren Waterman Appointed CFO
Shay Segev will now serve as DAZN’s sole CEO, having previously held the role alongside co-founder James Rushton. The company also appointed Darren Waterman as its new CFO. Waterman joins from Amazon Prime Video where he was international finance director.
Mark Hughes Appointed Dentsu’s Chief Operating Officer of Media
Dentsu has appointed Mark Hughes as its chief operating officer of media. Hughes is currently serving as Carat’s interim chief executive officer, having been client managing director since October 2019.
Lynn Lewis Promoted to IPG Mediabrands’ Global CMO
Lynn Lewis has been elevated to global CMO at IPG Mediabrands. Her previous role of US CEO has been filled by W. Joe DeMiero.
Jonathan Broughton Joins EBU As Head of Strategy
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has appointed Jonathan Broughton as its head of strategy, Broughton is an experienced analyst who founded Workshare Consulting – a technology, media and telecom consultancy.
This Week on VideoWeek
The Debate on Dark Patterns: Explained, read on VideoWeek
How AVOD Services Can Win the Battle for ‘Silver Streamers’, read on VideoWeek
Microsoft Will Acquire Activision Blizzard For $68.7 Billion, read on VideoWeek
US Lawmakers Introduce a Bill to Ban Majority of Targeted Advertising, read on VideoWeek
Ex-ICO Tech Lead Simon McDougall Chief Compliance Officer New Role at ZoomInfo, read on VideoWeek
Video Budgets Strong in Q4 2021 Despite Omicron Challenges, read on VideoWeek
Live Sports Are Seeing a Free-to-Air Revival, read on VideoWeek
European Retailers Are Thinking More Like Publishers as They Expand Media Offerings, read on VideoWeek
Ad of the Week
Samsung, The Marketplace, BBH London
