In this week’s Week in Review: Instagram brings Reels to TV, WBD rejects Paramount’s takeover offer, and Cindy Rose plans transformation at WPP.
Top Stories
Instagram Tests Reels CTV App on Amazon Fire TV
Instagram is testing an ‘Instagram for TV’ app to bring Reels to CTV, the Meta-owned company announced on Tuesday. The app is currently available in the US on Amazon Fire TV devices, with plans to expand to more devices and countries as the test goes on.
The Reels are grouped into channels that match user’s interests, according to the company, and will evolve to include functions such as using the phone as a remote, and ways to share feeds with friends.
“We’ve heard from our community that watching reels together is more fun, and this test is designed to learn which features make that experience work best on TV,” the company said in a blog post.
WBD to Reject Paramount Takeover Bid
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has told its shareholders to reject Paramount Skydance’s $108.4 billion takeover bid, according to the BBC, reportedly favouring the previously agreed agreement with Netflix.
Earlier this month, Netflix struck a $72 billion deal to acquire WBD’s film and streaming businesses. Paramount then went directly to shareholders with a “superior” offer for the entire company. The deal was expected to have a clearer path to regulatory approval, given its backing from Jared Kushner and the Ellison family, which has close ties to the White House.
But on Tuesday, Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners pulled out, and reports suggest that WBD is sceptical that Larry Ellison will backstop the deal. WBD and Paramount have declined to comment on the matter.
Cindy Rose Plans to Transform WPP From “Holding Company to an Operating Company”
WPP’s new CEO Cindy Rose is working on a restructuring of the struggling holding company in order to secure its long-term future, she told the FT on Thursday. The plans are designed to transform WPP from “being a holding company to an operating company,” and will be fully announced early next year.
Rose took over the role from Mark Read in September, having previously led Microsoft’s operations in Europe. Her plans involve dramatically simplifying the company’s operations, away from a traditional advertising agency network model that she said belonged to “a bygone era.”
“We’ve got to be able to provide integrated services to our clients, because that’s what they tell us they want,” she said. “[Clients] want the best of WPP, wherever that talent sits. They don’t want to be constrained by agency constructs. That might mean there’s a social influencer expert there and a commerce expert there and a data expert there.”
WPP’s share price has fallen more than 60 percent in 2025, and the company dropped out of the FTSE 100 earlier this month.
The Week in Tech
TikTok Hands Over US Operations
TikTok parent company ByteDance signed binding agreements on Thursday to hand control of the short-form video app’s US operations to a group of investors, in order to avoid being banned in the US. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but in September, Vice President JD Vance said the US company will be valued at around $14 billion. Under the agreement, the investors (including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX) will hold an 80.1 percent stake in the joint venture, while ByteDance will retain 19.9 percent.
Anti-Labour AI Videos Proliferate on YouTube
YouTube channels spreading fake, anti-Labour videos have amassed more than one billion views this year, according to a study by Reset Tech seen by the Guardian. The study said the channels were part of a global trend to produce synthetic propaganda on YouTube, using AI tools to make a quick profit from divisive topics. Channel 4’s Chief Commercial Officer Rak Patel called the news a sign that “the brand-safe, high-quality content environment provided by commercial TV is more essential now than ever in the fragmented, AI-filled, dopamine-heavy world unfolding elsewhere.”
smartclip Introduces First AI Agents
smartclip, RTL Group’s ad tech business, released of its first portfolio of AI agents last week. The agents are built on RTL’s agentic AI platform Sidekicks, and are integrated into smartx, smartclip’s supply-side platform (SSP) and ad server. The agents cover media and quality intelligence, workflow intelligence, and analytical intelligence, and are now available for testing by existing smartclip clients.
Digital Envoy Brings LocID to Bedrock Platform
Location data business Digital Envoy has partnered with Bedrock Platform, a demand-side platform (DSP), to bring its LocID solution to customers using the DSP. Digital Envoy said LocID is designed to keep IP-based identity signals consistent across campaigns for cleaner coordination, dependable reach, and more reliable measurement.
Daily Mail and DAZN Join LiveRamp Network
LiveRamp, a data collaboration company, announced on Monday that the Daily Mail and DAZN have joined its collaboration network. The publishers will now use LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) to provide addressability across their audiences, according to the company, enabling brands to activate and measure campaigns more effectively.
IAS Launches AI Assistant
Integral Ad Science (IAS) has launched IAS Agent, a new AI-powered assistant to help customers activate campaigns, uncover insights and optimise performance at scale. “IAS Agent was designed to be a marketer’s advertising compass,” said Srishti Gupta, Chief Product Officer at IAS. “It guides decisions with clarity and uncovers deep, comprehensive insights that would otherwise remain hidden—turning those insights into action, in real-time, so marketers can boost performance instantly.”
The Week in TV
Oscars to Stream Exclusively on YouTube from 2029
The Oscars will begin streaming exclusively on YouTube in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Wednesday. The deal will give the Google-owned video service the exclusive global rights to the Oscars until 2033, signalling a major shift in the world of entertainment, following significant declines in the awards ceremony’s TV audience over the last few years.
Trump Sues BBC for $10 Billion
On Monday Donald Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC, accusing its Panorama documentary of pushing “a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of the US President’s speech on 6th January 2021. The BBC, whose Director General and Head of News have resigned over the incident, said it will defend itself against the legal action.
ProSieben to Divest Online Weather Portal in Move to Prioritise Entertainment Business
ProSiebenSat.1 is selling online weather portal wetter.com to FUNKE Mediengruppe, the German media company announced on Monday. While financial details were not disclosed, ProSieben said the transaction is structured as an asset deal, and is expected to be completed in Q1 2026, subject to regulatory approval. The company said the move “underscores ProSiebenSat.1’s strategic focus on its core Entertainment business”, following its takeover by MFE-MediaForEurope earlier this year.
DAZN in Talks to Buy Majority Stake in Main Street Sports
DAZN, a sports streaming company, is in advanced talks to buy a majority stake in regional sports network (RSN) operator Main Street Sports Group, the WSJ reported on Tuesday. DAZN plans to make a “significant cash investment” in the firm, according to the report, and integrate its streaming service into its own offering. Sources familiar with the negotiations said a deal could be announced as soon as January.
E.W. Scripps Rejects Sinclair Takeover Bid
US broadcaster E.W. Scripps has rejected a takeover bid from US telco Sinclair, which sought to acquire the outstanding shares of Scripps that it does not already own for $7 per share in a mix of cash and stock. “After careful consideration, Scripps’ board determined that Sinclair’s unsolicited acquisition proposal is not in the best interests of Scripps and its shareholders,” said Kim Williams, the Chair of Scripps’ board. “The board nonetheless remains open to evaluating opportunities to enhance shareholder value and will continue to consider any course of action, including any acquisition proposal, that is in the best interest of all shareholders.”
The Week for Publishers
Associated Press Launces AI Verfication Tool for Journalists
Associated Press (AP) has launched AP Verify, an AI-powered tool to help journalists verify text, photos and videos from a central dashboard, Press Gazette reported on Monday. “It’s a natural extension that that AP would develop a tool like AP Verify so that everybody else can make sure that their information streams are also producing and sharing out authentic images, authentic videos, and being able to check that origin story of information,” said Aimee Rinehart, Senior Product Manager AI Strategy at AP.
Meta Tests Link-Sharing Limit on Facebook
Meta is running tests to restrict the number of links that creators and businesses can post per month on Facebook, according to Press Gazette, allowing them to post more links if they have a paid Meta Verified subscription. While news publishers are not currently included in the experiment, the report notes that they may see a traffic impact if other users are unable to share their content. Publishers have seen falling traffic referrals from Facebook after Meta moved to de-emphasise news on the social media service.
Google Removes Unified Pricing Rules for Publishers
Google has removed its unified pricing rules in Google Ad Manager, according to Search Engine Land, allowing publishers to set different price floors for Google demand versus other programmatic buyers. Google introduced unified pricing in 2019, meaning publishers had to sell to Google and its competitors for the same price. Scrapping the rules enables publishers to set bidder-specific floor prices in Ad Manager, a change that could reshape pricing dynamics in programmatic auctions.
News Publishers Back AI Licensing Standard
A coalition of news publishers have backed the RSL Collective, a licensing technology that aims to make AI companies pay for the content they scrape. The Really Simple Licensing (RSL) 1.0 standard is designed to let publishers dictate licensing and compensation rules for the web crawlers that visit their sites, and block their content from AI-powered search features, such as Google’s AI Mode.
The Week for Brands & Agencies
Magnum Leaves WPP for Publicis
The Magnum Ice Cream Company has appointed Publicis Groupe as its new global media agency, the business confirmed on Thursday. The account was previously held by WPP’s Mindshare, and has an estimated media spend approaching $80 million, according to COMvergence data. Magnum was previously Unilever’s ice cream division, but was spun off into a separate company earlier this month.
Accenture Song Posts Mid-Single Digit Growth
Accenture Song, Accenture’s advertising division, saw mid-single digit growth in fiscal Q1 2026, according to the company’s earnings update on Thursday. Analysis from Madison and Wall, an advisory and consultancy firm, said the group “continues to grow faster than Publicis Sapient and Globant, and likely is growing faster than Omnicom’s Credera, reinforcing its position as the largest scaled competitor at the intersection of marketing, data, and technology.”
Havas Acquires Belgian Agency DIGIZIK
Black Friday Drove Sportswear, Gaming and Home Décor Sales Finds Experian Data
Black Friday (28th November 2025) delivered 9.68 percent of all purchase transactions within the surrounding two-week shopping period, according to findings from Experian and Reward. The data showed that the discount-heavy shopping day drove sales uplift across the sportswear and outdoors category (1.86x), furniture and home décor (1.70x), and toys and gaming (1.59x). “Black Friday shoppers focused on sportswear, gaming and home décor, signalling early Christmas gifting alongside a renewed push into health, wellness and home-refresh projects for the year ahead,” said the study.
Hires of the Week
Immediate Hires Future’s Jon Restall
UK publishing group Immediate has appointed Jon Restall in as Director of Trading & Clients. In the newly created role, Restall will oversee Immediate’s Entertainment and Food & Wellness clients and strategy, alongside Immediate’s agency trading agreements. He previously spent five years as Head of Commercial at Future.
Channel 4 Names Alex Morris MD of 4Studio
Channel 4 has announced Alex Morris as Managing Director of 4Studio, the UK broadcaster’s social-first division. Morris has more than 15 years’ experience running digital-first content businesses, including LADbible Group and Barcroft Studios.
Daniel Lipman to Lead Serviceplan’s UK Launch
Serviceplan Make UK, a creative and content agency, has named Daniel Lipman as Managing Director, as Serviceplan Group launches in the UK. Lipman joins from WPP’s VML, where he was Coca-Cola client lead for Europe.
This Week on VideoWeek
‘Tis the Season to be Seen: How the Home Screen Brings Audiences Together
Why Fragmentation in CTV Might Be a Good Thing
80 Percent of UK Linear TV Spend is Leaving TV
CTV Has Ads for Everyone – So Why Isn’t Everyone Buying Them?
From M&A to Live Sport Campaigns: CTV Leaders’ Predictions for 2026
Ad of the Week
Samsung UK, A Friend for Christmas
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