The Justice Department is investigating TikTok’s owner over alleged spying on journalists. Surveying the protection of American citizens on the app, the investigation is tied to the admission that Beijing-based internet company ByteDance employees had acquired data on American TikTok users. The company said that the workers involved have been fired. TikTok also announced last week that the Biden administration had asked its owner to sell the app or risk a possible ban in the country.

In a new round of job cuts, Meta is eliminating 10,000 jobs and closing 5,000 open roles. The moves are to “improve organizational efficiency, dramatically increase developer productivity and tooling, optimize distributed work, garbage collect unnecessary processes, and more,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. As for timing, “My hope is to make these org changes as soon as possible in the year so we can get past this period of uncertainty and focus on the critical work ahead,” said Zuckerberg.

Meta employees who keep their jobs could find themselves spending more time in the office. “Engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely,” said Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement Tuesday. While acknowledging the RTO data requires further study, Zuckerberg encouraged employees for now to “find more opportunities to work with colleagues in person.”

Small business owners are now eligible to take advantage of Charter Communications’ offer of one free line of Unlimited Spectrum Mobile service for a year. “Charter is focused on providing small business owners with cost-effective, reliable and secure connectivity solutions so they can thrive in today’s competitive world,” said Sharon Peters, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer for Charter.

Pixellot, provider of AI-driven sports production solutions, has signed a strategic partnership with China’s Baidu. The agreement includes the installation of 200 Pixellot systems in venues across China, with a goal to install an additional 6000 systems over the next three years. The new partnership will further expand Baidu’s involvement in China’s sports market.

Industry innovators will be recognized for advancements and solutions around currency, attribution, CTV, and more at Cynopsis’ “Measure Up!” Awards, the first benchmarking program of its kind. Presented at the annual “Measurement & Data Conference” in June 2023, the Measure Up! Awards will highlight the people and companies doing work that is transforming the media landscape. Find out more here.

A New York City resident sued Amazon over biometrics in brick-and-mortar shops. Brooklyn resident Alfredo Rodriguez Perez alleged that the company failed to comply with the city’s Biometric Identified Information Law, requiring companies to post notifications about their biometric data prominently on its platform. “Since 2019, when Amazon first opened several Amazon Go stores in New York City, Amazon has collected, converted, retained, and stored the biometric identifier information of all customers who enter its Amazon Go stores,” Perez alleged in the class-action complaint filed Thursday, March 16.

Sesame Workshop is collaborating with VeVe forNFTs based on “Sesame Street” characters. First to drop is Cookie Monster, on March 19.

ADVERTISING

Tubi set to host a pre-Upfront event for advertisers on March 23 in New York City. The FAST service will hold the half-day conference, Tubi Connect, to display its growth, “fueled by diverse storytellers reaching passionate fans, and how brands can engage with them creatively, enable through data and technology,” according to the statement.

Twitter is offering an eight-part educational series, “Unskippable,” on video marketing for advertisers. “This course was created for creatives, by creatives, and does not just teach you what the best practices are, but how to use them to think about and approach your next piece of content,” said the Twitter team.

MEASUREMENT

FITE announced that viewing hours of its combat sports FAST channel, FITE 24/7, have surpassed the million-hour milestone in the twelve months since its launch. “It shows the strength of the FAST channel model, and the power of having great partners like The Roku Channel, LG and Plex,” said Louis Lewow, FITE’s VP of Distribution. “But most importantly it shows how big the appetite is for the kind of adrenalin-filled content FITE has always excelled at delivering.”

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STREAMING

Seventy-four percent of consumers plan to watch the March Madness tournament this year, with 54% planning to watch at least one game via streaming app, according to a new study from LG Ad Solutions. Additional findings include:
· 81% of viewers say they are likely to pay attention to TV ads while watching March Madness. And 52% of consumers actually feel more favorable toward brands that advertise during the tournament.
· 37% of viewers watch live sports mostly or only via TV streaming apps, with Amazon Prime and YouTube TV being the top apps used to stream live sports.
· 41% of viewers will spend more time watching live sports in 2023 compared to 2022. Currently, 80% of viewers watch sports at least once a week.
· 81% of viewers are likely to watch sports content on a free, ad-supported streaming TV app.

And just in time for March Madness, YouTube TV launched early access enabling fans to watch multiple streams at once. Some members will begin to see an option to watch up to four pre-selected, different streams at once in their “Top Picks for You” section. After selecting Multiview, viewers will be able to switch audio and captions between streams, and jump in and out of a full-screen view of a game. “Multiview joins our suite of features for sports fans and we’re looking forward to continuing to improve the experience and introducing it to all YouTube TV subscribers over the next several months,” said YouTube in a blog post.

Netflix was responsible for nearly 15% of global downstream traffic last year, almost as much YouTube and TikTok combined, according to the 2023 Global Internet Phenomena Report from Sandvine. The streamer was responsible for one-sixth of the world’s total downstream internet traffic last year, the most of any single application, up from 2021, when it had a 10.61% share in total downstream traffic. Netflix surpassed YouTube, which saw its share drop to 11.6% in 2022 as interest in viewing TikTok and short-form videos surged.

Brightcove introduced new integrations with Shopify, Instagram and Salesforce Sales Cloud aimed at boosting e-commerce capabilities for their customers, specifically enabling companies to reach, engage and activate audiences. Retail and e-commerce brands will be able to grow and activate their audience by connecting their storefronts, websites, and social media channels with live and on-demand video experiences.

After more than a decade, the Standard Terms & Conditions for internet advertising, last updated in 2018, will be significantly overhauled. Launching in April 2023, the 4As, the ANA, and the IAB will create a joint task force that includes advertising agencies, marketers, publishers and ad tech companies. The goal is to reduce friction, increase buying efficiency, and acknowledge the many changes in the digital ad marketplace.

Allen Media Group’s free streaming platforms have added Speedvision FAST Channel, expanding its motorsports and automotive entertainment content library. On Local Now, Sports.TV and theGrio, the channel features car build shows, garage content, automotive history, and auction programming.

CordCutting.com’s annual State of Streaming report finds that 93% of American adults access streaming video platforms, while only 40% have cable or satellite service. The average streamer spends $50 monthly on streaming services across four different platforms, with Netflix being the most popular. One battle still impacting the industry is password sharing, which costs the industry approximately $2.4 billion a year. Twenty-one percent of streamers “mooch” passwords, with Netflix the most affected.

X League, the top-tiered women’s football league, has teamed with NEO Studios on an all-access docuseries chronicling the league’s inaugural season, seen through the eyes of the athletes leading the charge. Backed by NFL Hall of Famer Mike Ditka and Sam Gordan, the first woman to win an NFL Honors Award, X League officially kicks off in summer 2024. NEO will be documenting the formation of the league and all the events leading up to it.

GAMING

Gaming is expanding as an advertising medium, notes new data from DISQO. Over one-third of consumers now play games daily, according to the report, and people who play video games weekly or more often were 34% more likely to say that they notice ads in the games they play and 12% more likely to say that they were distracted by the ads. However, they’re also more than twice as likely to say that they’ve made a purchase after seeing ads in a game. “Gaming is no longer niche and should be treated as a mainstream advertising medium,” concluded the report. “As brands wrestle with the best strategies to excel in gaming, they should engage in rapid experimentation of different ad formats, audiences, and gaming platforms.”

DigitalReef announced a merger with Gamers Club, the video gaming matchmaking platform and community hub in Latin America. Rebranded as Siprocal, the consolidation of the two companies creates a gaming distribution, monetization, and engagement platform throughout the Americas. “Siprocal is a first of its kind, next generation platform that bridges the needs of multiple key stakeholders and end users in the gaming and mobile media spaces,” said Steve Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer of AEG and Executive Vice President of The Anschutz Corporation, and the newly appointed Board Chair of Siprocal. “Connecting mobile carriers and OEMs to game studios and publishers, brands to customers, users, and subscribers, Siprocal is uniquely positioned to meet each party in the time and place that is most convenient and relevant driving meaningful results and experiences.”

More than 1.1 billion people worldwide are expected to watch live game streaming in 2023, up from 980 million last year, according to data from Statista, with market revenue growing 20% year-over-year, to $11.7 billion. Although user growth is expected to slow down this year, the number of live game streaming fans is projected to jump by 17% or 170 million year-over-year.

Microbetting consumer gaming company Betr announced an expansion with the launch of core markets. Allowing pre-match and in-play betting, the rollout will begin ahead of March Madness with 0% margin on pre-match core markets for all NCAA tournament games. Betr will also celebrate the monthlong sporting event with a “Beat Derek’s Bracket” challenge, where users can go head-to-head with the “Fade God” himself, Derek Sullivan. The launch comes on the heels of the company’s Ohio launch and the upcoming expansion into Massachusetts and Virginia.

SPORTS

Major League Soccer and TikTok announced an exclusive multiyear deal. The partnership will bring content, in-app programming and more to fans on the app, who will be able to search “MLS” for access to the “MLS Hub.” The companies will also launch a Club Creator Network, where TikTok creators can pair with club teams to create content throughout the regular and off-season.

Cynopsis Team