Week in Review: UK Minister Floats BBC/Channel 4 Merger, NYT Eyes Up Linear TV News Audiences, and ITV Expands YouTube Sales to Banijay

In this week’s Week in Review: a UK minister floats the idea of merging the BBC and Channel 4, the New York Times sees and opportunity to win audiences from TV news, and ITV signs a deal to represent Banijay content on YouTube.

The Week in Tech

Amazon Ads MCP Server Launches to Connect AI Agents to Amazon Ads

Amazon has announced that the Amazon Ads MCP Server, a translation layer enabling AI agents to access Amazon Ads functionality, is now available in beta. The Amazon Ads MCP Server enables advertisers to connect custom-built agents or AI platforms, such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini, to Amazon Ads capabilities, allowing agents to create, update or delete campaigns. They can also run performance and reporting queries, manage account-level settings, and access billing and financial data.

IAB Seeks to Fix Media Measurement’s Foundational Issues with Project Eidos

The IAB on Monday announced the launch of ‘Project Eidos’ at its Annual Leadership Meeting, which it describes as a coordinated, multi-year, industry-wide effort to fundamentally modernise advertising and marketing measurement. “While advanced measurement is widely used across the industry, it’s still falling short of its core promise. The time for a single-channel fix or a one-off framework has passed,” said David Cohen, CEO of the IAB. “It’s time to address the foundational issues that have quietly undermined measurement for years.” Publicis Media, Paramount, WPP Media, Unilever, Google, TikTok, Meta and Amazon Ads are among those supporting the initiative at launch. Read more on VideoWeek.

MRC Issues Digital Advertising Auction Transparency Standards

The Media Rating Council (MRC), an accreditation body for measurement products, has issued a set of standards for boosting transparency in digital ad auctions. The standards outline requirements for reporting on the types of auction systems being used, how winners of auctions are determined, and how prices are set.

ICO Opens Investigation into X Over Grok’s Sexualised Deepfakes

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data regulator, has opened formal investigations into X and X.AI. The probe covers the companies’ processing of personal data in relation to the Grok AI system, and its potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content, following reports that Grok has been used to generate non‑consensual sexual imagery of individuals, including children. The ICO is working closely with UK communications watchdog Ofcom, which is conducting its own investigation under the Online Safety Act.

Snap Spins Off AR Glasses Division Specs Inc.

Snap, parent company of Snapchat, has spun off Specs Inc. as a separate subsidiary, the tech firm announced on Saturday. Snap said that establishing the distinct business unit, which is primarily focused on building augmented reality (AR) glasses, provides “greater operational focus” and also raises the potential for minority investment in the company. The move comes as Snap’s ads business faces tough competition from larger social media companies such as Meta.

Google Doubles Down on AI Spending

Google revenues topped $400 billion for the first time in 2025, jumping 15 percent compared to 2024, while YouTube revenues surpassed $60 billion for the full year. The company also announced plans to double its capital expenditure this year to $185 billion, as part of a spending arms race on AI between the tech giants.

Amazon Shares Slide on Spending Announcement

Amazon also committed $200 billion to capex for developing AI in 2026, roughly one-third more than Wall Street had forecast. The announcement prompted the company’s shares to slide 10 percent, despite revenues climbing 14 percent YoY in Q4 2025 to reach $213.4 billion, ahead of analyst expectations.

Reddit Forecasts Q1 Revenues Above Expectations

Reddit’s revenues climbed 70 percent YoY in Q4 2025, driven by the company’s fast-growing ads business. The company also expects first-quarter sales to come in the range of $595-605 million, higher than Wall Street expectations of $577 million. Reddit’s share price rose five percent following the results.

PubMatic Launches AI Insights to Help Publishers Understand Demand Dynamics

PubMatic, a sell-side ad tech firm, has launched AI Insights, a new set of AI-driven capabilities designed to help publishers understand demand dynamics and enable more informed decision-making. Using the PubMatic Assistant, publishers can use natural language prompts to see how inventory, pricing and demand compare to a relevant peer set. “With our AI Insights, we’re applying generative AI to give publishers real-time answers to why performance is changing and where yield opportunities are emerging,” said John Martin, Associate Vice President, Publisher Growth Solutions at PubMatic.

The Week in TV

Disney Streaming Profits Jump as New CEO Announced

Disney’s streaming division posted a 72 percent YoY jump in operating income during Q4 2025, reaching $450 million, with revenues up 13 percent to hit $4.4 billion. However, operating profit for the overall entertainment unit, which includes Disney’s film studios, TV networks and streaming services, fell 35 percent, due to the cost of marketing theatrical releases Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash. Meanwhile the company named Josh D’Amaro, formerly head of Disney’s amusement park business, as its new CEO, replacing Bob Iger on 18th March.

ProSieben and MagentaTV Join Forces as Competition Intensifies in Germany

On Thursday German broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 and Deutsche Telekom announced an extension of their distribution partnership, which will integrate the Joyn PLUS+ SVOD service into the telco’s TV offering. The companies already collaborate on distribution in Germany, having struck an agreement in 2024 to make all of Joyn’s ad-supported content available on the MagentaTV streaming service. In addition, MagentaTV subscribers can watch all of ProSieben’s free and pay-TV linear channels on the streaming service. The new five-year partnership extends those agreements, while enabling Telekom customers to subscribe to Joyn PLUS+, the ad-free version of ProSieben’s streaming service, directly through the telco at a discounted rate for a 12-month subscription. Read more on VideoWeek.

Influent Media Agrees Deal to Represent Disney+ in Ireland

Sales house Influent Media has agreed a deal with Disney to represent Disney+ ad sales in Ireland, starting this month. Disney+’s Standard with Ads subscription tier is launching in Ireland on March 3rd, offering advertisers pre-roll and mid-roll spots. “We’re incredibly proud to exclusively represent Disney+ in the Irish advertising market,” said Louise Doddy, commercial director at Influent Media Ireland. “This is a transformative moment for premium streaming in Ireland, and the arrival of the Disney+ ad tier offers advertisers a truly iconic storytelling environment to align with. We’re excited to work with agencies and brands to deliver brilliant results from day one.”

Canal+ Shares Jump on Cost Savings Stemming From Multichoice Acquisition

Canal+ shares jumped 14 percent to ‌a record high last week, after the pay-TV group said it expects last year’s acquisition of MultiChoice to deliver over €400 million in annual cost savings. Canal+ CFO Amandine ‌Ferré also noted that Netflix’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) should not alter the course for the French media business, which now has a presence in 70 countries.

UK Could Move Fully to Internet-Delivered TV in Mid-2030s

New research from Sky, conducted by Oliver & Ohlbaum, suggests that the UK will be able to move fully to internet-delivered TV in the 2030s, if the government sets a clear timetable and invests in digital inclusion. The report, ‘Stream On: The Future of UK TV’, found that most viewers have already migrated to internet-delivered TV, with 94 percent of UK adults now having internet at home, and 92 percent using a video-on-demand service.

ProSieben Revenues Slide on Weak TV Advertising

ProSieben’s TV ad revenues fell by around four percent YoY in 2025 to reach €16.57 billion, according to preliminary figures released by the German media group, whose overall revenues dropped by six percent to hit €3.68 billion. “The earnings development reflects the challenging market environment in Germany, which continues to be characterised by an industry-wide decline in investments in TV advertising,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “This also had a negative impact on ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s TV advertising business in the fourth quarter, which is the most important quarter for the company.”

Germany to Introduce Laws Requiring Streaming Services to Invest in Local Production

Global streaming services will be required to reinvest at least eight percent of the income they earn in Germany into local TV and film production, under new legislation due to be introduced by the German Government. Similar schemes are in place in other European countries; in France the streaming companies have to reinvest at least 20 percent of their revenue locally. C21Media noted that the quota will not only apply to streaming giants such as Netflix and Prime Video, but also local broadcasters, due to criticism of some domestic TV channels cutting costs by moving production to cheaper locations in eastern Europe.

EBU Warns Against Public Media Funding Freeze in Poland

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has warned that a freeze in public media funding in Poland could weaken public service media in the country. Lawmakers in Poland have proposed that public media funding should be frozen at PLN 2.5 billion for the next ten years. “Fixing funding over such a long period fails to account for inflation and rising production costs, and risks gradually weakening public service media rather than strengthening them,” the EBU said in a statement. “Funding must be adequate, stable and predictable, and reflect the real costs of modern broadcasting.”

Average 30-Second Super Bowl Spot Cost $8 million This Year

Advertisers paid an average of $8 million for 30 seconds of advertising during the Super Bowl, according to NBCUniversal’s ads chief Mark Marshall. Speaking to the FT, Marshall said that some of the biggest brands are paying more than $10 million for a 30-second spot. He added that nearly 40 percent of advertisers were new to the Super Bowl, and that two-thirds were also advertising around the Olympics.

The Week for Publishers

Bloomberg Launches Unified Video Hub

Financial news business Bloomberg this week announced the launch of a new unified video hub, which will bring together all of Bloomberg’s live and on-demand video content including its live TV output, original video series, and podcasts. This content will all be available via a unified portal on Bloomberg’s website, as well as a new ‘Stream’ tab on the mobile app, and the company says it will also arrive on third-party streaming apps later this year. The video refresh also includes a refresh of technical infrastructure, which Bloomberg says will allow it to start limiting access to some of its video content to paying subscribers only.

“With one of the world’s largest business video libraries and hundreds of new hours added each month, we’re focused on connecting people to the content they need to make big decisions – and generating more innovative opportunities for advertisers along the way,” said Roman Mackiewicz, Bloomberg Media’s chief information officer.

Washington Post Cuts One Third of All Staff

US news outlet the Washington Post cut around one third of its total workforce this week, a move affecting all departments including around 300 journalists, the company announced this week. A statement released by the Post said the company is “taking a number of difficult but decisive actions today for [its] future”. The newspaper’s finances were hit last year when at least 200,000 readers cancelled their digital subscriptions, following owner Jeff Bezos’s decision not to publish an endorsement for the US election.

UK Magazine Publishers Launch Unified Marketplace ‘Atria’

A group of UK publishers including Future, Hearst UK, Immediate, Bauer, Time Out, and HELLO!, have launched a new joint marketplace called ‘Atria’, which they say will help advertisers reach quality audiences at scale. The marketplace will be hosted by ad tech business Permutive, and will enable advertisers and agencies to plan and book campaigns across the participating publishers’ inventory, using those publishers’ first-party data.

People Inc. Posts Nine Percent Digital Ad Growth in Q4

US publisher People Inc.’s parent company IAC reported its Q4 earnings this week, revealing that digital ad revenues were up nine percent year-on-year in the quarter, fuelling 14 percent total growth in digital revenues. People Inc. attributed the growth to higher spending from the health and pharmaceuticals, finance, and media and entertainment categories, as well as an increased contribution from its contextual ad business D/Cipher+. Programmatic ad revenues were down however, driven by a 13 percent fall in core sessions. People Inc. said this fall in core sessions was primarily due to “the impact of the growing prominence of Google AI Overviews on Google search sessions”.

Daily Mail Owner Reports 15 Percent Ad Revenue Fall as AI Hurts Traffic

The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) reported its full year earnings this week (covering the 12 months up to September 30th 2025), reporting a fifteen percent fall in digital ad revenues as well as a one percent drop in total revenues. Revenues for DMGT’s consumer media segment fell by two percent year-on-year. The company attributed the dip in digital ad revenues to “the introduction
of AI overviews by search engine providers, resulting in fewer users clicking through to news websites”.

Microsoft’s AI Publisher Marketplace Looks to Expand

Microsoft has said that following initial pilot development, it is now looking to expand its Publisher Content Marketplace, a marketplace for publishers to licence access to their content to AI companies. The marketplace enables publishers to define licensing and usage terms for their content, which AI companies can then discover and buy access to. A number of major publishers have been involved in the pilot programme so far, including The Associated Press, Business Insider, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc, USA TODAY Co., and Vox Media. Now, Microsoft says it is ready to expand further, and is looking for more partners on both the supply and demand sides of the market.

Direct Sales Fuel LADbible Revenue Growth

LADbible parent company LBG Media reported its 2025 earnings this year (which cover the 12 months up to September 30th 2025), with adjusted group revenues up ten percent year-on-year. Revenues earned through direct relationships with advertisers and agencies drove this growth: total direct revenues increased 13 percent year-on-year, and US-specific direct revenues grew by 29 percent over the period. “Our positive momentum in our Direct revenue streams, progress in the U.S., strong pipeline and audience engagement support the Board’s confidence of further progress in FY26,” said LBG Media CEO Solly Solomou.

News UK’s talkSPORT Streams Live Serie A Football Through DAZN Partnership

UK-based media brand talkSPORT, known primarily for its radio output, broadcast live footage of a Serie A football match between Italian teams Cremonese and Inter last Sunday, thanks to a partnership with rights holder DAZN. The game was distributed on talkSPORT’s digital channels, including its YouTube channel. “We are extremely delighted to be able to deliver live coverage of the Cremonese v Inter Milan match on talkSPORT’s YouTube channel in partnership with DAZN, as we continue to turbocharge our video output,” said head of talkSPORT Liam Fisher.

IAB Launches Draft Legislation to Tackle AI Scraping

The IAB released proposed draft legislation call the ‘AI Accountability for Publishers Act’ at its Annual Leadership Meeting this week, a piece of legislation which would help crack down on unauthorised scraping of publisher content for use in AI tools and systems. The act, if passed into law, would give publishers clear powers to take AI companies to court if they found that crawlers were scraping their content without consent. “If we continue to allow AI companies to take what they want from publishers for free, there will be few ad-supported publishers left of any kind in just a few years,” said David Cohen, president and CEO of the IAB.

New Scientist Passes 10 Million Social Subscribers

DMGT-owned science magazine New Scientist now has more than 10 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube and LinkedIn, the company reported this week, a sign that its investment in video is paying off. New Scientist’s channels are also reaching 61 million monthly views on their video content collectively. “Over the last six months, New Scientist has been working on a raft of new editorial ideas, with the aim of attracting a younger audience”, said Matt Hambly, head of audience “We’ve been trialling these on social channels with great success.”

The Week for Brands & Agencies

Publicis Posts 5.9 Percent Organic Growth for Q4

French agency holding company Publicis Groupe released its full-year earnings on Tuesday, once again delivering healthy year-on-year organic growth. The company had a strong end to the year, with Q4 organic growth reaching 5.9 percent, bringing full-year growth up to 5.6 percent — above Publicis’s previous guidance of between 5.0 and 5.5 percent. The company also provided rare insight into organic growth in gross revenue terms, giving a much sought-after direct comparable with its major competitor Omnicom: Publicis’s organic growth in gross revenues hit 8.9 percent last year, while Omnicom (which is yet to report its full-year results) has set a target of between 2.5 and 4.5 percent growth. Publicis’s share price fell by over 10 percent in the days following the results however. Investors were seemingly disappointed by the group’s 2026 guidance (with organic growth projected between 4 to 5 percent), and concerns remain around the long-term impact of AI on the agency model. Read more on VideoWeek.

Dentsu Launches ‘Generative Audiences’

Agency group Dentsu this week announced the launch of Generative Audiences, a new AI-powered tool which it says united identity-based targeting with signal-based models, in the UK. Dentsu says the product combines deterministic precision with the scale of AI-generated, individual-level personas, creating statistical simulations of real audience groups such as UK homeowners, 18-34s, or early tech adopters. “Generative Audiences is a true game-changer for the UK market,” said Ben Gott, data and technology president at Dentsu UK&I. “It gives our clients instant growth intelligence, allowing them to ask anything, anticipate what’s next and activate with precision. This isn’t just another targeting tool. It’s a new sophisticated approach that blends human insight with AI to help brands stay ahead of cultural and consumer shifts.”

Lego Builds In-House Programmatic Team

Toy brick maker Lego is setting up an in-house programmatic media team, Digiday reported this week, as the company is hiring programmatic roles in the US and Denmark. Lego first set up an in-house media unit back in 2024, though it also still partners with Publicis for media. One job posting seen by Digiday says the company is seeking a programmatic expert to build and lead an in-house team.

Publicis’s Working With Cancer Initiative Reaches 40 Million Workers Worldwide

Publicis’s Working With Cancer initiative, which asks companies to commit to creating more open, supportive, and recovery-forward work cultures for employees with cancer, now spans more than 5,000 companies and covers more than 40 million workers worldwide. Publicis is now launching a new AI coach, designed to help employers provide personalised, practical support for employees living with cancer. It’s also spinning up a new global campaign to encourage more companies to sign the Working With Cancer pledge.

Advertising Association Launches Best Practice Guide for Responsible Use of AI

Advertiser trade group the Advertising Association this week released a new best practice guide covering the responsible use of generative AI in advertising, providing recommendations for how to navigate AI’s opportunities while mitigating risks. The guide focuses on eight principles for responsible use, which it translates into specific actionable steps: ensuring transparency, ensuring responsible data use, preventing bias and ensuring fairness, ensuring human oversight, promoting social wellbeing, driving brand safety and suitability, promoting environmental stewardship, and continuous monitoring and evaluation.

Arla Expands European Media Relationship with Carat

Dairy business Arla Foods this week announced a two-year extension of its relationship with Dentsu-owned media agency Carat. The renewed agreement covers European markets including the UK, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, and will see Carat work alongside Arla’s in-house agency The Barn.

Hires of the Week

Josh D’Amaro to Replace Bob Iger as Disney CEO

Disney has named Josh D’Amaro, the company’s head of theme parks, as its next CEO. Effective 18th March, D’Amaro will replace Bob Iger, who has served as CEO for almost 20 years, in two separate stints. The three-year succession saga involved interviews with 100 external candidates, according to the FT.

Sabio Appoints Christian Gladwell as Senior Director of Strategy and Partnerships

Sabio, a CTV ad tech firm, has announced Christian Gladwell as Senior Director of Strategy and Partnerships. Gladwell will focus on scaling Sabio’s global partner ecosystem, supporting sustainable growth, and helping refine the company’s end-to-end CTV offering. He brings more than two decades’ experience in advertising and performance marketing, including almost four years as Global CEO at M&C Saatchi Performance.

Vistar Media Names Oliver Goodge as Enterprise Sales Director, EMEA

Vistar Media, an out-of-home (OOH) ad tech business, has appointed Oliver Goodge as Enterprise Sales Director, EMEA. In the newly created role, Goodge will lead the expansion of Vistar Media’s enterprise solutions across the region. He previously worked as Head of Programmatic at omnichannel advertising company i-media.

Goodstuff Hires TikTok’s Ryan Murdoch as First COO

Goodstuff, a Stagwell-owned media agency, has hired Ryan Murdoch as its first Chief Operating Officer. Murdoch joins from TikTok, where he served as Head of Agency Measurement for Europe.