\n<\/b>Researchers have uncovered that fraudsters have infected nearly one million devices with apps that imitate popular streaming services, according to research conducted by cybersecurity company Human Security Inc. An average of 650 million ad placement opportunities in online ad exchanges each day are placed by fraudsters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
The fraudulent activity siphoned off ad dollars meant for streaming apps available on popular streaming-TV platforms run by Roku, Amazon, Apple and others. While describing the fraud as \u201csophisticated\u201d, Human Security said it could be alleviated if digital ad players strictly followed industry guidelines for tracking the origins of traffic and implemented certain security features.<\/span><\/p>\n Roku said the fraud had not affected those who bought ads from them directly. \u201cRoku is committed to fighting ad fraud in every form and to the development of leading practices for staying ahead of fraud globally,\u201d said Willard Simmons, vice president of product management at Roku.<\/span><\/p>\n EX.CO Acquires Cedato Cedato is a programmatic operating system, by acquiring them EX.CO will be able to offer its users things like predictive recommendations for video content, header bidding for video ads and improved support for connected TVs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “I’m very excited about Cedato’s technology and its ability to drive revenues across platforms while maintaining a great user experience,\u201d said\u00a0 said Tom Pachys, CEO at EX.CO. \u201cIt perfectly complements what we have been building and will be a huge benefit to both our partners and Cedato’s client base.”<\/span><\/p>\n Apple to Boost Ads Business as ATT Enforced from Next Week Apple is also bringing in ATT enforcement on 26 April, the company say the move is to protect the privacy of users but it looks set to bolster their own advertising business. Competitors, such as Facebook, worry that the changes will have a massive impact on their advertising business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, said of the changes: \u201cApple may say they\u2019re doing this to help people, but the moves clearly track with their competitive interests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Outbrain To Go Public Brand Risk Rises But Ad Fraud Rates Improve, According to Report DoubleVerify Debuts on the Public Market Microsoft Announces Video Ads Hive Raises $85 Million The Trade Desk, Magnite and Innovid Partner on CTV Ads Netmarble Partners with Anzu for Blended In-Game Ads NENT Group\u2019s Viaplay Sees Subscribers Rise by 25 Percent Groupe M6 Sees Ad Revenue Growth in Q1 Slow Netflix Subscriber Growth Quibi Content Rebranded as Roku Originals Tubi Ad Revenue Predicted to Reach $1.7 billion by 2025 Churn Rates For New SVOD Services As Much as 37 Percent, Warns Deloitte BBC iPlayer Reports Best Quarter on Record Rakuten Reveals Distribution Deals with Samsung and ViacomCBS Nielsen Says No to Audit Requests from TV Companies Vevo Partners With VIDAA to Launch Its App on Smart TVs Daily Mail Owner Sues Google Facebook Tests Ads in Instagram Reels Discord Opts for IPO Over Microsoft Sale Facebook and Reddit Test Out Clubhouse Competitors
\n<\/b>EX.CO is acquiring Cedato, a video monetisation platform. This is the first acquisition for EX.CO previously known as PlayBuzz. EX.CO, a publishing platform allows publishers, brands, agencies and content creators to create interactive content like quizzes or video snippets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Apple is to boost its ad business just as it introduces its new ATT privacy policy. The <\/span>FT <\/span><\/i>reports that Apple plans to bolster its ad business by adding new advertising slots in its \u201cSuggested\u201d section in its App Store. Apple already provides an advertising slot for apps who wish to get to the top of search results on the App Store.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Week in Tech<\/h2>\n
\n<\/b>Oubrain will seek a $2 billion valuation in an initial public offering. Outbrain had sought a merger with rival Taboola, which it has since abandoned. This planned IPO is one of a run of ad-tech companies going public in recent months.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Risk to brands is on the rise, but the rate of ad fraud has improved according to a report from Integral Ad Science (IAS). The fraud rates globally among optimized campaigns dropped to between 0.3 percent to 0.8 percent for H2 2020, while non-optimized campaigns registered 5.1 percent to 8.6 percent. According to the data from IAS Desktop video brand risk increased to 6.7 percent in H2 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>DoubleVerify made its New York Stock Exchange debut on Wednesday. By Thursday, the company’s shares had jumped by a third following its first day of trading. PubMatic, Viant and AppLovin\u2019 have all made IPOs in the last month. DoubleVerify is backed by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners and hedge fund Tiger Global Management.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Microsoft has announced that advertisers will soon be able to run video ads within Microsoft Audience Network campaigns. Microsoft is piloting the new feature in the UK and US. The video ads will run at up to 120 seconds long and can be run on both desktop and mobile devices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Hive, which is a company that supplies AI-based contextual and measurement solutions to media and ad tech companies, said this week that it had raised $85 million in funding. This round of funding values Hive at over $2 billion. The company has said it will use the funding to go towards branded and contextual content.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The trio of The Trade Desk, Magnite and Innovid have teamed up to provide an all-inclusive place to programmatically buy, create and display interactive CTV ads to specific households. The three companies hope the alliance will allow them to scale interactive CTV ads, Innovid\u2019s CEO says 30 percent of their clients run these formats but only about three to four percent of users engage with them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>European games publisher Netmarble EMEA has announced it is partnering with Anzu to bring blended in-game advertising into its PC title Wolfteam. The partnership will see display and video ads placed into the Wolfteam world via Anzu’s tech.<\/p>\nThe Week in TV<\/h2>\n
\n<\/b>Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group) saw its SVOD-service Viaplay gain 127,000 subscribers in Q1 2021. The company as a whole posted 16 percent growth in organic sales, although reported revenues were done. Subscription revenue makes up 35 percent of NENT Group\u2019s revenue, while advertising makes up 29 percent. Advertising revenue was up 6 percent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Groupe M6 posted its Q1 2021 results this week, revealing that its multimedia advertising revenue was up 1.6 percent year-on-year. Groupe M6\u2019s total revenue was down 7.7 percent to \u20ac296.6 million from \u20ac321.3 million in Q1 2020. The group\u2019s non-advertising revenues were down by \u20ac3.1 million, mainly due to the fall in cinema revenues as a result of their closure.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Netflix said it had slower subscriber growth than expected in Q1 2021. On Tuesday, the company reported that it had added four million subscribers between January and March this year, fewer than the prediction of six million. The disappointing results for Netflix come as economies are slowly reopening, the streaming service had a bumper 2020, with stock up 26 percent in the last 12 months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Roku is rebranding all the content from acquired Quibi as Roku Originals. Roku is getting into original content, saying that it will release 75 series and films this year on its AVOD offering, The Roku Channel. Many of those will come from Quibi\u2019s library of content which it acquired in January this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Tubi\u2019s ad revenue could reach $1.7 billion by 2025,a report by MoffettNathanson predicts. The AVOD service is predicted to help boost Fox\u2019s results in upcoming years. The report estimated that Tubi could substantially increase its advertising revenue, adding that the AVOD service expects to more than double its ad sales, from about $150 million in 2020 to about $380 million in 2021.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>2020 saw the launch of a host of new streaming services during the pandemic, now Deloitte is warning there are difficult times ahead for these services. Churn rates have risen sharply since the beginning of the pandemic. There were around 20 percent, says Deloitte in its report, and actually went down right at the beginning of the pandemic. However; churn rates are now at 37 percent. In better news only three percent of those unsubscribing from one service are not replacing it with another.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>BBC iPlayer had over 1.7 billion streams in the first three months of this year, making it the broadcast streaming service\u2019s best quarter on record. The first full week of this year (4-10 January) was the iPlayer\u2019s best ever week with 163 million streams. BBC iPlayer was helped by successful series like The Serpent, Line of Duty, and RuPaul Drag Race UK.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The Japanese group, Rakuten has revealed a pair of major distribution deals with Samsung and ViacomCBS. Rakuten\u2019s partnership with Samsung means it can expand its free content offering on the Samsung TV Plus service, rolling out channels in 16 new European markets. Meanwhile the other deal will bring the Nick+ SVOD offering from ViacomCBS to Japan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Nielsen has refused a demand from an industry group representing major TV companies to have a third-party auditor take a look at its TV ratings measurements from the past year. Last week, the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), which represents companies like A+E Networks, Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS, wrote a letter to Nielsen asking for a third-party audit on TV ratings during the pandemic, accusing the company of \u201csystematic and compounded undercounting of overall TV use\u201d. Nielsen has said that it is regularly examined by the Media Rating Council, and therefore does not need to be subject to an additional audit.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Vevo has partnered with VIDAA, a smart TV operating system which runs on models from companies such as Hisense and Toshiba, to launch its app on VIDAA-powered smart TVs. The move is part of Vevo\u2019s effort to expand its CTV offering .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Week in Publishing<\/h2>\n
\n<\/strong>The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, claiming the tech company throttles search traffic for publishers who don’t sell enough of their inventory through Google’s ad tech products. DMGT said it believes its search traffic for its coverage of the UK’s royal family this year has been particularly affected. Google denies the claims.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Facebook has begun testing ads within Instagram Reels, its TikTok clone that sits inside the main Instagram app. The tests are being run in India, Brazil, Germany and Australia.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Chat app Discord is looking into a potential IPO, having ended talks with potential buyers including Microsoft, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. The talks could be rekindled in the future, according to the WSJ’s sources.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Facebook and Reddit are both separately testing new social audio features, following the growth in popularity of Clubhouse. Reddit’s ‘Reddit Talk<\/a>‘ is going through select testing, while Facebook’s ‘Live Audio Rooms’ are expected to roll out this summer.<\/p>\n
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