\n<\/strong>Comcast-owned streaming service Peacock continued its expansion into Europe this week, launching in Germany and Austria. The service is available to subscribers to Sky’s various services. Meanwhile Comcast CEO Patrick Roberts says the company plans to double the content budget for its Peacock streaming service from $1.5 billion to $3 billion this year, placing faith in its loss-making venture.<\/p>\n
Roberts said that Peacock has now reached 24.5 million monthly active users, 75 percent of its target for 2024. And while Peacock is currently running at a loss, Roberts says he believes the services hybrid model will pay off in the long term. The majority of paid subscribers opt for the cheaper ad-supported subscription package, and Roberts said he believes that having two revenue streams will be healthier in the long run.<\/p>\n
Despite the increased investment, Comcast still sits far behind rivals in terms of content spend. HBO Max earlier this year pledged to spend $18 billion on content this year, bringing it more in line with the likes on Netflix and Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n
Google Pushes Ahead with FLEDGE for Post-Cookie Retargeting FLEDGE is designed to enable privacy-safe retargeting without the use of cookies, and was designed as a replacement for the earlier TURTLEDOVE proposal. Meanwhile Core Attribution API, as the name suggests, handles attribution. Both have been refined in terms of exactly how they operate, in order to address privacy concerns, and both will now be pushed for testing in Origin trials (which Core Attribution had already been undergoing in a previous form).<\/p>\n While the updates give more clarity on what’s happening inside Google’s sandbox, questions remain on whether sufficient time has been left for testing and further refining. Both APIs are due to begin their first transition phase, when they’re expected to be fully launched in Chrome and ready for scaled use across the web, in Q4 this year.<\/p>\n Nielsen\u2019s Undercounting Cost TV Networks $350 Million, Says VAB Nielsen had reported in December that a \u201csoftware error\u201d had resulted in an undercounting of out-of-home crowds beginning in September 2020. But a report from the VAB says the undercounting of this type of viewing is worse than initially thought. The report estimates that between April and the end of 2021, Nielsen did not count \u201cone and a half billion\u201d impressions. The report also said that Nielsen\u2019s count disproportionately missed out young, Black and Hispanic viewers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, Nielsen and the Media Ratings Council have taken issue with the report from the VAB. Nielsen insists that \u201cthe magnitude of the issue was very small\u201d. The MRC take issue with how the VAB utilised its data to reach its conclusions. <\/span><\/p>\n Google Files Motion To Dismiss Most Charges Against It in Antitrust Suit LG Ads Solutions To Offer Guarantees Based on Outcomes for CTV Inventory AppNexus Founder Launches Climate Friendly Ad Company Google Launches FLoC Replacement, Topics API Online Safety Bill Missed Opportunity to Prevent Internet Harms, Say MPs Three States and DC Sues Google Over Tracking Practices IAS Introduces Live Media Quality Measurement for CTV Online Platform 9GAG Adopts ID5\u2019s Technology Zefr to Provide Brand Safety Measurement Solution for TikTok Advertisers Pixability Announces Record Year for Revenue and Profitability Two-Thirds of Gamers Say They Would Welcome More Ads Into Their Game, Says Anzu Survey HBO and HBO Max Report 4.4 Million New Subscribers in Q4 Earnings Channel 4 and Formula E Announce Multi-Year Broadcast Agreement ITV Evening News To Be Extended to One Hour One Third of Under-Thirties \u201cNever\u201d Watch Any BBC TV Live, Says Survey Polish Public Broadcaster Preparing to Launch New VOD Service New Movie Windowing Regime For French Players NBCUniversal Lowers Its Ratings Expectations for the Winter Olympics German Publishers Oppose Google’s Plans to Kill Third-Party Cookies BBC Overtakes Reach as UK’s Most Popular Online News Publisher YouTube Shorts Tops Five Trillion Views
\n<\/strong>Shortly after announcing it was replacing its FLoC Privacy Sandbox proposal with Topics API, Google confirmed it is pushing ahead with its FLEDGE API and a reworked version of its Core Attribution API, two other key components of its post-cookie advertising toolset.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/videoweek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fledge-Lifecycle.png\")
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\n<\/b>Nielsen\u2019s undercount of out-of-home TV viewing cost TV networks $350 million, says trade body the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB). Out-of-home viewing is that which takes place in areas outside of the home, like bars, hotels and offices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Week in Tech<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n<\/b>Google has filed a motion to dismiss four of the six charges that a group of states has filed against it. If dismissed these charges would not be able to return to the same court in the antitrust case. The states, led by Texas, allege Google acted in an anticompetitive way in their online ads business. Google says the complaints misrepresent their business.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>LG Ad Solutions will allow advertisers to only pay for CTV ads when specified outcomes are met. These outcome goals will be verified by MRC-accredited third-party measurement partners. LG says they are the first company to have a media offering which combines a full suite of outcome guarantees.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Brian O\u2019Kelley, founder of AppNexus has launched Scope3,a startup with a mission to reduce digital advertising\u2019s carbon footprint. O\u2019Kelley says that the company will collaborate with leading companies in the digital advertising space to \u201cmeasure and reduce the carbon footprint of the ad-supported internet\u201d. Scope3 will be ran as a public benefit company, meaning that it is for-profit it is obligated to work for good rather than just the interests of shareholders.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Google has announced Topics API, an interest-based targeting tool within the Privacy Sandbox. Topics API replaces Google\u2019s previously proposed FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), which had attracted antitrust and privacy criticisms. Google has promised to phase out cookies by the end of 2023, giving it limited time to test the targeting tool.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The House of Commons\u2019 Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has said the government\u2019s draft Online Safety Bill would miss opportunities to tackle online harms. In the committee\u2019s report <\/span>The Draft Online Safety Bill and the legal but harmful debate, <\/span><\/i>the committee highlights \u201cinsidious\u201d parts of child abuse and online violence against women that the bill failed to tackle. These are practices, which are technically legal, but still lead to widespread harm.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Texas, Indiana, Washington State and the District of Columbia (DC) have sued Google over what they call \u201cdeceptive\u201d location-tracking practices.The suit alleges that Google leads users to believe they can turn off being tracked through their settings, but Google “continues to track users\u2019 location through other settings and methods that it fails to adequately disclose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Integral Ad Science (IAS) has expanded its IAS Signal reporting platform to launch a new CTV dashboard. The new dashboard allows advertisers to measure media quality with CTV data based on device, app, channel, genre, content category, and rating, something which IAS say is a first for the industry. The new capabilities will be available within IAS Signal.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Online platform and social media website 9GAG has adopted ID5\u2019s technology to monetise \u201ccookieless\u201d users. 9GAG is a Hong Kong based platform that provides online content and memes to users, racking up considerable site traffic. ID5 will be working with the online platform to help reach and optimise this traffic across all browsers in a cookieless future.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Zefr has partnered with TikTok to provide brand safety and brand suitability measurement to advertisers on the platform.\u00a0 The product utilises Zefr\u2019s Cognition AI machine learning engine, and provides advertisers with video-level verification of their content adjacencies on TikTok. The partnership covers the US and Canada, the UK and the EU.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Video insights provider Pixability has announced a record year for its revenue and profitability. Revenue grew 64 percent year-on-year. Revenue growth was consistent across all profit lines, but CTV revenue was particularly strong- up 228 percent year-on-year. In 2021 the Pixability team also grew by 42 percent to support this growth.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>A survey by in-game advertising provider Anzu has found that 66 percent of gamers would welcome more ads into their games. The survey also found that seven in ten gamers (70 percent) were either positive or neutral towards in-game advertising.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Week in TV<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n<\/b>HBO and HBO Max added 4.4 million new subscribers in Q4 2021, a figure that was reported during parent company\u2019s AT&T\u2019s earnings report. AT&T ended the quarter with revenue of $41 billion, beating estimates. Despite this it saw its shares drop, as the company prepares to spin off WarnerMedia. HBO was the standout driver of growth for AT&T in 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Channel 4 has announced that it will become the exclusive UK free-to-air broadcaster of Formula E. Every race in the Formula E championship will either be broadcast on Channel 4 and All4 (C4\u2019s VOD service) or on the broadcaster\u2019s sports YouTube channel. The coverage will be hosted by Vernon Kay, Nicki Shields, Dario Franchitti and Jack Nicholls.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>ITV\u2019s national and international evening news programme will be extended to one hour from March 2022. The news programme will now run from 6.30pm to 7.30pm, to be followed by soap opera <\/span>Emmerdale.<\/span><\/i> On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays this will be followed by a second soap, <\/span>Coronation Street, <\/span><\/i>which will run for an hour. The shuffle is a bid to strengthen ITV\u2019s pre-9pm offering.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>One-third of under-thirties, surveyed in a YouGov poll for the <\/span>Sunday Times, <\/span><\/i>say they never watch any BBC television live. Only one in 20 18-30 year olds report watching BBC TV live every day, compared to half of over-65s. The survey also found that BBC iPlayer, the BBC\u2019s VOD service, was actually favoured by older people, with only a quarter of the under-30s using the service once a week or more compared with almost a third of those aged over-65.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The Polish public broadcaster TVP is preparing to launch a new VOD service in the first quarter of this year, say reports in the Polish press. According to <\/span>Press, <\/span><\/i>the service will be called TVP GO and will be marketed at younger audiences. It will aim to include channels from private broadcasters Polsat and TVN in its offering, says the report.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Canal+ will be the first TV or VOD player able to air new movies in France. The pay-TV operator will only have to wait six months after theatrical release to be able to air movies. Netflix will be second to be able to air, at 15 months; this represents a significant decrease from its current window of 36 months. Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video will have to wait a further two months after Netflix to air movies, while free-to-air broadcasters such as France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions and TF1 will be able to air them after 22 months.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>NBCUniversal is lowering its expectations for Winter Olympics TV ratings by as much as half, depending on the time of day and platform. The combination of the pandemic and controversy over China\u2019s human rights\u2019 record means the broadcaster has had to adjust its expectations. Its broadcast of the Tokyo summer Olympics was met with the lowest viewership since 1988. NBCU also attributes low ratings to a measurement system it says doesn\u2019t capture the shift to streaming.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Week For Publishers<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n<\/strong>German publishers and advertising, including Axel Springer and a number of other large businesses, have filed a complaint with the EU’s competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager against Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome. “Publishers must remain in a position where they are allowed to ask their users for consent to process data, without Google capturing this decision,” said the document, according to the Financial Times<\/a>. “Google must respect the relationship between publishers and users without interfering.”<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>The BBC has overtaken Reach as the UK’s most popular online news publisher, according to data from Ipsos Iris. The BBC reaches 80 percent of UK internet users according to the data, while Reach reaches 76 percent.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Shorts, YouTube’s hub for ultra-short form content, has surpassed five trillion views, according to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki’s recent letter to YouTube creators. In the letter Wojcicki also said YouTube is working on integrations with NFTs, though she didn’t outline exactly how these integrations would look.<\/p>\n