Count Roku among the customers hit hard by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week. In an SEC filing, Roku revealed 26% of its cash – “largely uninsured” – was held in the bank. “At this time, the company does not know to what extent the company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB,” said the filing. “Notwithstanding the closure of SVB, the company continues to believe that its existing cash and cash equivalents balance and cash flow from operations will be sufficient to meet its working capital, capital expenditures, and material cash requirements from known contractual obligations for the next twelve months and beyond.”

Garry Tan, the President of kstartup accelerator Y Combinator, has asked Congress to step in and save SVB. “We are not asking for a bailout for the bank equity holders or its management; we are asking you to save innovation in the American economy,” he wrote in an open petition signed by over 3500 chief executives. “We ask for relief and attention to an immediate critical impact on small businesses, startups, and their employees who are depositors at the bank. According to the NVCA, Silicon Valley Bank has over 37,000 small businesses with more than $250,000 in deposits.”

Meta is looking into building a standalone text-based, Instagram-branded content app that will support Twitter rival ActivityPub. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates,” said a company spokesperson. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”

Federal authorities in Los Angeles seized an internet domain last week that was used to sell computer malware used by cybercriminals to take control of infected computers and steal a wide array of information. The domain offered the NetWire remote access trojan (RAT). “A RAT is a type of malware that allows for covert surveillance, allowing a ‘backdoor’ for administrative control and unfettered and unauthorized remote access to a victim’s computer, without the victim’s knowledge or permission,” according to court documents filed in LA. Authorities in Croatia on Tuesday arrested a Croatian national who allegedly was the administrator of the website.

Microsoft announced that ChatGPT is available in preview in Azure OpenAI Service. “With Azure OpenAI Service, over 1,000 customers are applying the most advanced AI models—including Dall-E 2, GPT-3.5, Codex, and other large language models backed by the unique supercomputing and enterprise capabilities of Azure—to innovate in new ways,” said the company. “With ChatGPT in preview in Azure OpenAI Service, developers can integrate custom AI-powered experiences directly into their own applications, including enhancing existing bots to handle unexpected questions, recapping call center conversations to enable faster customer support resolutions, creating new ad copy with personalized offers, automating claims processing, and more.“

TikTok is launching a paywalled 20-minute video feature called Series to generate revenue for select creators, who can charge up to $189.99 for the content. Each Series can include up to 80 videos that can each be up to 20 minutes in length. The format will start taking applications for a wider range of creators in the coming months.

OpenVault has been awarded a patent for techniques that can help broadband operators diagnose and automatically remediate issues in subscriber Wi-Fi and Ethernet networks. U.S. Patent No. 11,477.072, “System and Method for Prescriptive Diagnostics and Optimization of Client Networks,” provides capabilities that give operators a full view of the elements that contribute to the consumer experience – including subscriber networks, connected devices, customer premises equipment, access networks, and services – to enable proactive operational optimization.

WPP and Japan’s KDDI have teamed to develop new digital capabilities for content creators. The goal is to support Japan’s digital creators by joining WPP’s scale and digital creative expertise with KDDI’s Web3 expertise, and enable WPP and its agencies to collaborate on opportunities with KDDI. “As Japan’s digital ecosystem catches up with the rest of the world, it is critical that content creators are equipped with the latest technology to set them up for success,” said Kyoko Matsushita, CEO WPP Japan

MEASUREMENT

OpenAP on behalf of the U.S. Joint Industry Committee announced the publication of its initial requirements for premium video cross-platform currencies, requirements that are needed for all cross-platform currencies to be transactional. Buyers and sellers will have an equal voice in defining the criteria that will be used to evaluate measurement solutions. “We believe that if we’re going to transform the way video is measured, the buying community must have a seat at the table in defining new standards,” said David Levy, CEO of OpenAP. “By reaching consensus on minimum requirements within this ambitious timeline, we are together demonstrating the significance and impact of industry-wide collaboration.”

Days after the JIC announcement, Google’s YouTube issued a call for the industry to agree on, adopt and adhere to common principles in any third-party cross-media audience measurement solution. “We’re siding with marketers who need to measure reach across all platforms, regardless of the content creator, video length or camera quality,” said the company in a blog post. “This will improve consumer ad experiences and help marketers and agencies drive much needed efficiency in their media investments.” Google proposed five principles:
· Measurement must provide a unified view of audiences across TV, CTV/OTT and online platforms.
· The MRC viewable impression should be the basis for counting impressions, reach and frequency, and report other metrics, such as duration, separately.
· Only solutions that are privacy-centric can meet consumer expectations and be durable for marketers long term.
· Solutions should be publisher agnostic, marketer-oriented, with transparent and auditable methodologies.
· Competition and choice in measurement, should be supported, while avoiding unnecessary complexity and costs for advertisers and agencies.

iSpot and The CW are partnering to measure cross-platform premium video campaigns and sponsorships associated with the 2023 LIV Golf Tournament across linear and digital properties. “With an innovative approach to sponsorship opportunities for brands and advertisers, LIV Golf on the CW will be an immersive, omnichannel advertising opportunity in ways the industry really hasn’t seen before,” said Michael Strober, EVP and Chief Revenue Officer, Nexstar Media Group. “With this unprecedented integration of experiential omnichannel activations across digital and linear, as well as traditional and offline channels, we needed a measurement provider who could keep pace with our innovative approach to consumer monetization.”

Omnichannel ad exchange Sharethrough and media quality measurement provider Adelaide have teamed to launch an attention-based curated inventory. Adelaide will be able to measure millions of impressions across Sharethrough’s inventory and generate an AU (Attention Unit) rating for each placement. Adelaide’s AU is a precise measure of a placement’s likelihood of driving attention and impact. The offering will be available to all Sharethrough customers through high-AU PMPs (private marketplace).

First Look 2023: OTT Virtual Conference

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ADVERTISING

NBCUniversal is partnering with The Trade Desk on Unified ID 2.0 to boost the addressability of programmatic inventory on Peacock. The update was shared at The Trade Desk’s Forward ’23: Always On event last week. “We want to make the full suite of capabilities available across transaction methods. So we’ve been accessing identity solutions in the programmatic landscape and are thrilled to announce that we have officially partnered on UID2,” said Joe Cady, EVP of Advanced Advertising at NBCU, who added that the solution should be live next month. “It will help with addressability, add to efficiency and effectiveness, and I’m sure that’s just the beginning.”

Streaming technology company Brightcove has launched Brightcove Ad Monetization, a service designed for media companies to better monetize their content. The company also created a new global advertising operations team to support media organizations. “Advertising-supported streaming is a fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar business we have supported for many years,” said Marc DeBevoise, CEO of Brightcove. “As a valued partner to our media customers, Brightcove Ad Monetization extends our commitment to providing them with the best products and services to power their video content, optimize their advertising strategy, and now – for the first time – truly drive and maximize their advertising revenue.”

The share of spoofed ad traffic purporting to be from Roku devices increased to 6% in December 2022, according to Pixalate’s Q4 2022 Device Spoofing Report. iOS devices appear to be used the most for device spoofing – Pixalate estimates 16% of spoofed ad traffic on Roku devices in October 2022 was from iOS devices. Use of other devices spiked in November and December, at around 58% of spoofed traffic.

Eighty-eight percent of adults notice OOH ads and nearly 80% of those viewers are inspired to take action, according to new survey results from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America and Morning Consult. Survey responses also reinforced the importance of creating OOH ads that represent an increasingly multicultural population. Nearly six in ten Black, Asian, and Hispanic American consumers said they are much more likely or somewhat more likely to notice an OOH ad that reflected their cultural identity, compared with about one in four white adults. “It’s crucial that brands take an inclusive stance with their advertising,” said Anna Bager, President & CEO of the OAAA. “This goes beyond representing minority groups in campaigns and includes hiring diverse teams to conceptualize and create the ads.”

Ninety-eight percent of internet-connected U.S. households are now reachable via open programmatic CTV advertising, according to Pixalate’s H2 2022 Global Connected TV Ad Supply Trends Report. Additional findings include:
* 41% YoY increase in global open programmatic CTV ad spend
* EMEA saw 380% YoY growth
* 50% of open programmatic ad spend in CTV went to Roku devices in Q4 2022
* LG market share climbed to 5% – moving LG up 181% YoY

DoubleVerify announced the launch of Authentic Direct, a solution allowing publishers to align with advertiser brand suitability on direct campaigns. The tool aims to eliminate impression waste cause by brand suitability violations. Also launchings is DV Campaign Automator for Google Campaign Manager 360. The solution streamlines the campaign trafficking process, removing manual, repetitive touch points that. DV Campaign Automator works across all formats and devices, including desktop, mobile web, mobile app and CTV.

Ad investment in gaming is not nearly at the level it should be due to five misperceptions, according to a study from IAB in partnership with MediaScience: Brands typically overestimate the cost of entering the in-game advertising market; underestimate the reach and quality of in-game ads; underestimate how effective these ads can be as purchase-driving tools; overestimate the complexity of measuring success with in-game ads; and overestimate the risks to the brand and in-game advertising’s effect on brand safety. “The success stories we heard from buyers about gaming were striking — and all the more so because they don’t align at all with the misperceptions of the industry at large,” said Zoe Soon, Vice President, Experience Center, IAB. “Advertisers are missing a prime opportunity to reach and persuade consumers in these dynamic environments.”

Advertisers could reach 98% of U.S. households through programmatic buys by the second half of 2022, up from 50% at the end of 2019, according to Pixalate’s CTV Ad Supply Chain Trend Report. On the Roku platform, the top-grossing open programmatic advertising apps in 2H22 were Hulu, Pluto TV, Sling TV, Plex and Fubo TV, while the top-grossing apps on the Fire TV platform were Pluto TV, Philo, Tubi, Sling TV and Fubo TV.

STREAMING

Cinedigm is partnering with J. Alexander Martin, founder of the fashion brand FUBU, and producer Roberto “Rush” Evans, to launch the For Us By Us Network. The new service will feature movies, authentic and raw content around issues, personalities and trends related to the hip-hop culture and lifestyle, and will utilize Cinedigm’s Matchpoint technology platform to power the full service, making FUBU one of the first brands to leverage the Matchpoint platform on a SaaS basis.

Spin Magazine has partnered with Best Ever Channels for the launch of a new Spin music FAST channel, debuting March 21 on Amazon Freevee. “Our partners at Amazon Freevee understand the power of the Spin brand, and together we’ll reach a massive audience of fans hungry to connect with their favorite artists and the most authentic voice in music editorial,” said BEC Co-Chief Executive Officer Barry Gordon.

EarthxTV, the Dallas-based television entertainment network dedicated to environmental sustainability, announced a multi-year distribution agreement to bring its programming to Fubo, and is now available to U.S. subscribers of Fubo’s base ‘Pro’ package. “Fubo has built an impressive audience by tapping into the passions of its viewers,” said Rajan Singh, Head of Distribution for EarthxTV. “Our mission is to share the inspiring stories of the people working to make our planet a better and more sustainable place for everyone.”

Cynopsis Team