Monday January 10, 2022

Also generating excitement at CES (to name just a few): The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 3, a laptop with a 17.3-inch screen and an 8-inch companion LCD display next to the keyboard; the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless headset, featuring a lighter design and 300 hours of battery life; the Jabra Elite 4 Active earbuds, loaded with features and just $119; and Sony’s new Quantum Dot OLED TVs, offering dramatically bright, accurate visuals.

Users of BlackBerry devices running on BlackBerry OS 7.1 and BlackBerry 10 will lose access to data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality starting today. Which doesn’t come as a surprise – the shutdown was announced in 2020. “We have chosen to extend our service until [January 4] as an expression of thanks to our loyal partners and customers,” said the company.

Seventeen-year-old Charli D’Amelio ranked as the highest-paid TikTok star of 2021, according to Forbes, raking in $17.5 million. Her sister Dixie, 20, came in second, earning an estimated $10 million. But that’s just one source of income for the sisters, who are also featured in Hulu’s “The D’Amelio Show” and Snapchat’s “Charli vs. Dixie.”

Nielsen’s Gracenote and Lucid Group have collaborated to bring new audio features to the Lucid Air luxury electric vehicle. By integrating Gracenote’s Smart Radio data and technology solutions, Lucid’s entertainment interface will connect drivers and passengers to audio content from a range of sources. “One of Gracenote’s primary objectives is to help our automotive customers deliver next-generation content navigation and discovery that connects their end users to the audio they love out on the open road,” said Simon Adams, Chief Product Officer, Gracenote.

Meanwhile, Google and Volvo announced upcoming new services, including the ability to download and use the YouTube app via the Google Play Store, and the ability to communicate with the Google Home ecosystem. “Allowing our customers to watch videos while charging or when waiting to pick up their children from school is part of our promise to make their lives better and more enjoyable,” said Henrik Green, Chief Product Officer at Volvo Cars. “With YouTube and other major streaming services coming soon, our customers can enjoy their charging break instead of seeing it as just a hassle — making electric car ownership that bit easier.”

Apple has launched App Analytics for in-app events. Users can now view information about their in-app events, including event page views, reminder and notification data, and the number of downloads and redownloads that were driven by events. Each metric can be viewed by territory, source type, device.

Pixelworks announced it is working with TCL to bring Pixelworks’ TrueCut Motion platform to TCL televisions. TrueCut Motion offers the ability to deliver picture quality optimized for a superior motion viewing experience. The solution provides filmmakers with advanced mastering tools to control how motion is visualized in their films, not only in theaters but also at home, so TV viewers can experience content presented the way the filmmaker intended, without adjusting any settings on their TV.

ADVERTISING

NBCUniversal announced the launch of NBCUnified, a first-party identity platform that helps any sized advertiser to use data effectively and efficiently. Comprised of three main components – NBCU ID, Data Marketplace and Partner Integrations – NBCUnified unites the company’s network of consumer touchpoints into a scaled data offering for marketers within One Platform. “It all starts with consumer relationships and trust,” said Krishan Bhatia, President and Chief Business Officer, NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships. “We understand what engages over 230M adults each month, and with NBCUnified, we can translate these relationships into better consumer experiences, deeper insights for our partners, and a more connected TV world for our industry.”

Catalina, a shopper intelligence and omni-channel media provider, and PlaceIQ are teaming to bring location-driven planning, measurement and attribution to CPG retailers. Catalina will use PlaceIQ’s Firehose Visits product to enhance its measurement, audience creation and analytics offerings. Firehose Visits includes visitation metrics – along with Place metrics to capture open hours, multi-use properties, and more. PlaceIQ will extend its large Point of Interest (POI) database to include over 30,000 locations to support Catalina’s OOH and place-based media service.

BIG DEALS

Tech company Smartly.io announced the acquisition of Ad-Lib.io, a creative optimization platform. The integration of Ad-Lib’s technology will allow Smartly.io to support brands across YouTube, Display & Video 360 (DV360), and Google Ads campaigns, in addition to social advertising platforms. “Both the Smartly and Ad-Lib teams believe strongly in the need for solutions that bring creative and media closer together,” wrote Ad-Lib.io Founder Oli Marlow-Thomas in a blog post. “And we get excited about the same successes, be that a campaign that scales effectively cross-markets in record time, or a video that breaks all VTR records, or some other measure of creative effectiveness. This is as much about a joining of great people as it is about delivering customer value and capturing market share.”

Twitter closed the sale of MoPub to AppLovin Corporation for $1.05 billion in cash. “With the sale of MoPub completed, we continue to concentrate our efforts on enhancing ads across our platform. Our goal is to deliver faster growth in key areas and accelerate our product development,” said Bruce Falck, GM of Revenue Products, Twitter.

Integral Ad Science has acquired Context, part of its effort to target digital advertising and avoid placing messages in inappropriate content. Context uses artificial intelligence to classify video content across digital media. Integral Ad Science acquired CTV ad platform Publica in August.

Magnite has acquired Nth Party, a startup developing cryptographic software for secure audience data sharing and analysis. “First party audience data is becoming increasingly important to the future of advertising,” said Adam Soroca, Chief Product Officer at Magnite. “Our teams share the same principles around data compliance and safety.”

Stay tuned as Cynopsis releases its 2022 events calendar! Here’s what’s already been confirmed for next year: OTT Virtual Conference – March 8th, Sports Media Awards, April 19th, Big TV Conference – Sept 20-21st, Esports Business Summit – Nov 1-3rd

VISIT THE OTT CONFERENCE

Nielsen announced the launch of Streaming Signals, a new solution for CTV operators and advertisers. Using machine learning models to determine who is in the household based on historical viewership data, Streaming Signals delivers a signal within 50 milliseconds to CTV operators of who is currently streaming program content. “Nielsen Streaming Signals brings a layer of unmatched real-time, person-level demographic precision to audience optimization,” said Ameneh Atai, General Manager Digital and Advanced TV, Nielsen. “We know that the media industry is going through accelerated change, switching to a streaming-first approach, and with an audience watching programming whenever, wherever, and on a number of devices.”

Comscore is launching a new measurement product, Comscore Everywhere, aimed at informing the media transaction marketplace in a way that is reflective of true consumer behavior. Comscore Everywhere will also create a common comparable “Audience Definition” across media and screens powered by a singular dataset and methodology. “Consumers don’t think in terms of linear versus streaming versus digital – they think of content,” said David Algranati, Chief Product Officer, Comscore. “Measurement must reflect that reality.”

STREAMING

Sixty-three percent of consumers believe the streaming subscriptions they want are too expensive, according to the Accenture’s “Streaming’s Next Act” study. And asked what percentage of content provided by five major streaming services is relevant to them, no service scored above 40%. “That’s not far off from what we found consumers thought about the content they paid for from their cable providers a few years ago,” noted the report.

Future Today’s average CPM increased by 25% year over year in November, supported by technological advances and expanded capabilities in contextual and demographic targeting, reports the company. Total watch time across the platform increased by 85% year over year in Q3 2021, streaming more than 63 million hours of content in November. “2021 has been a pivotal year for Future Today,” said CEO Vikrant Mathur. “We expect this growth to continue into 2022 and beyond, as AVOD adoption increases by both consumers and brands.”

Firstlight Media is now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace, offering customers faster access to Google Cloud development tools and storage, rapid deployment of the Firstlight Media OTT platform, and friction-free procurement and consolidated IT spend. “With availability on the Google Cloud Marketplace, we’re able to streamline processes for our customers so they can more readily reap the benefits of our agile, scalable, extensible and highly performant platform,” said Eric Goldstein, head of business development for Firstlight Media.

AMC Networks has completed the acquisition of anime content supplier Sentai Holdings, whose brands include subscription service HIDIVE. “This acquisition builds on AMC Networks’ already strong IP and franchises, and furthers our targeted streaming strategy of super-serving passionate audience with content depth, curation and community,” said AMC Networks Interim CEO Matt Blank.

Pixellot, provider of AI-Automated sports video and analytics solutions, and streamer FloSports are partnering with collegiate softball event company THE Spring Games to give fans expanded views of the games and raise the production values, and the profile, of women’s softball. THE Spring Games will be streamed exclusively on FloSoftball, the dedicated live softball streaming platform operated by FloSports.