04/27/26: Cynopsis Media Tech Update

A Cynopsis Message From ITN

Monday April 27, 2026

   TOP MEDIA TECH NEWS

The POSSIBLE conference kicks off today in Miami, bringing agencies, brands, media companies and tech partners together for several days of networking, conversation and insights along the palm tree-filled beaches. Many media and tech companies, including Nielsen, Roku and Integral Ad Science, purposely timed significant product and partnership announcements for the Monday morning of the event. The common denominator? Ad performance.

· Nielsen launched a new feature called Predictive Sales Lift, designed to help advertisers predict sales lift and incremental revenue from campaigns run through Nielsen One Ads, the company’s comprehensive video ad measurement platform. Predictive Sales Lift aims to help buyers drive better business outcomes by predicting where their campaigns might perform best, based on sales lift data from previous Nielsen One Ads campaigns. The objective is to make it easier for advertisers – especially smaller brands – to invest in streaming campaigns that will drive demonstrable performance. The new feature will be generally available to US buyers by next month, although Nielsen maintains the tool isn’t directly tied to its upfront plans.
· Roku unveiled a new platform called Roku Curate, which aims to help advertisers and buyers improve business outcomes from their streaming campaigns. The feature offers ready-to-use media packages tailored to a marketer’s desired KPIs based on Roku’s viewing and audience data paired with purchase data from partners. Roku is pitching its latest product as a way for buyers to buy streaming media more effectively while also improving ad performance. Launch partners include Best Buy Ads, Instacart and Fetch, among others.
· Integral Ad Science (IAS) announced a new comprehensive suite of ad products, which it calls IAS Total TV. The goal is to provide advertisers with improved transparency into where their streaming ads are running – which is something marketers have been asking for for years. Show-level content information is much easier to come by for linear and traditional TV, where content runs through a centralized distribution point. But between media fragmentation, data privacy regulations and walled-garden-style business structures, program-level data is harder to come by in streaming environments. IAS is pitching its Total TV product as a way to bring ‘linear-like’ transparency to streaming TV in a way that’s compliant with the Video Privacy Protection Act. Currently, marketers can access genre, rating, language, show and program-level data in aggregate from Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal and Prime Video, in addition to other publishers using the IAS-owned video ad server Publica.

A Cynopsis Message From ITN

   BEST OF THE REST

Ahead of its upfront, Fox unveiled a new AI-driven ad platform called Fox AdStudio. The platform is designed to give advertisers real-time insight into content and viewing engagement across Fox’s portfolio, which should help improve outcomes-based measurement when paired with Fox’s audience graph and past ad performance data. Performance is a central part of the media company’s upfront pitch, as is scale. Fox touts the fact that audiences across its content portfolio, which includes news, sports and the free ad-supported TV platform Tubi, are complementary and don’t tend to overlap much. In other words, advertisers that invest more ad spend with Fox won’t just be bombarding the same viewers over and over – they can reach new viewers who just might buy something.

Netflix plans to offer advertisers a way to buy dynamically inserted ads during its airing of the Women’s World Cup over the summer of 2027. Live sports and more advanced ad offerings are Netflix’s areas of focus as it works to fulfill its expectations of doubling its annual ad revenue again. Dynamic ad insertion is becoming more popular as advertisers try to personalize their ad targeting during live tentpole events, particularly sports. Which would explain why Netflix isn’t the only streamer flexing its DAI chops. Earlier this month, Paramount announced plans to roll out DAI capabilities to other sports in the CBS Sports digital portfolio.

Speaking of Paramount, the media company launched a short-form vertical video feed on the Paramount+ mobile app for iOS. The goal is to circulate short clips of Paramount content in hopes of increasing platform engagement and getting viewers interested in new shows. It’s also a goal Paramount has in common with other streaming platforms – Disney and Peacock recently rolled out short-form video features to amplify their own respective IP, and Netflix is planning to launch a similar feature at the end of the month. Publishers have similar reasons for making their content available on free ad-supported TV channels: if a publisher’s content is available to watch in a variety of formats, chances are higher that a viewer might discover a new show or movie they want to stream.

Programmatic media specialist MiQ released its From Funnel to Flexibility Report, which focuses on how people browse and watch content. The report also analyzes buying behavior, aiming to help media buyers better understand consumer paths to purchase, which often appear to be random. Among the findings:

· 42% of consumers surveyed say their path to purchase feels entirely random
· 69% say they discover brands they like when they’re not actively shopping
· 91% of consumers use a second screen while watching TV, with 22% actively researching products related to what they’re watching
· 71% of consumers get distracted while researching products, only returning to their search when reminded
· Over 45% of consumers use AI tools or chatbots to compare products, summarize reviews or receive recommendations while shopping

A Cynopsis Message From ITN

SiriusXM Media now has exclusive rights to sell YouTube’s audio inventory in the US. This inventory includes music streams, podcast playbacks, talk shows and other audio-based content where the visual component is absent or insignificant, such as an animated image. The collaboration makes strategic sense because YouTube wants to better monetize its audio inventory by selling it as a product separate from the rest of its video inventory. For the most part, media buyers allocate video and audio ad budgets separately, which would explain why, for streaming audio, consumption time exceeds ad budgets. Paired with SiriusXM’s audio advertising tech and scale (its portfolio includes streaming networks such as Pandora), its exclusive access to YouTube inventory might incentivize media buyers to spend more on audio ad campaigns.

PayPal unveiled a new platform called Curated Ads, designed to bring more attribution to connected TV advertising. The platform lets media buyers create audience segments using PayPal’s transaction data and target those audiences across Warner Bros. Discovery, Tubi and Spectrum Reach. Buyers can then link those streaming impressions to sales to measure campaign performance.

TripleLift, a creative-focused supply-side platform, launched a new product called TL Spark. The feature aims to unify core advertising capabilities: ad creative, audience targeting, curation, measurement and campaign optimization. The announcement builds on the SSP’s efforts to drive more business outcomes with improved campaign automation. Curation remains a core (and conspicuous) part of competitive business strategy for media sellers and the ad tech platforms that serve them.

The 2026 midterm elections are expected to see more than $10 billion in political ad spend, making it the most expensive non-presidential election cycle in US history, according to a new report from Kinetic Political Insights. The report also suggests that streaming ads will eclipse 25% of all political advertising for the first time this year. While broadcast TV should still see the highest media spending from political buyers this year, streaming is seeing more comparative growth in ad spend.

Ad tech platform Nexxen announced that the independent agency H/L is the first to run programmatic home screen ads through Nexxen’s technology. Marketers can access Nexxen’s newer smart TV home screen ad offerings through private marketplace deals available in its demand-side platform. The effort is part of a larger trend of publishers and brands focusing on home screen ad inventory as a way to reach consumers earlier in their content discovery and viewing journey – including consumers who stream content ad-free.

Sell-side ad platform Magnite announced a strategic collaboration with Hearst News, making Magnite the preferred deal partner for high-impact ad formats such as web exit-intent placements and connected TV pause ads. Using Magnite’s SpringServe video ad platform, Hearst News hopes to better monetize its cross-channel inventory while attracting demand for popular ad placements, such as pause ads. Many streaming publishers and ad tech partners, including Magnite, have been focused on advancing pause ad technology while encouraging buyer adoption to help increase monetization of streaming ad supply.

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Editorial Director
lleahey@accessintel.com

Dave Colford
SVP, Media
dcolford@accessintel.com

 

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Kelly Mahoney
Group Director, Sales
kmahoney@accessintel.com

Kerry Smith
Division President
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EXECUTIVE >>
TBS INTERNATIONAL/LOS ANGELES, CA: Draft, review, and negotiate a broad range of entertainment and media agreements, with a primary focus on unscripted television, format licensing, and intellectual property distribution. Handle development, production, and co-production agreements, including situations where TBS is designated as the production entity providing production services. More info HERE

PRINT TRAFFICKER AND TECHNICAL COORDINATOR >>
FILM FEST DC/WASHINGTON, DC: Coordinate direct communication between print sources and the festival to ensure the on-time inbound and outbound delivery of all film materials and work with venue staff to deliver and test each film and KDM. Request and collect KDMs for all encrypted DCPs and maintain a spreadsheet that contains all the aspects of the film. Full info HERE

MANAGER, MEMBER ENGAGEMENT AND ANALYTICS >>
TELEVISION ACADEMY/NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA:
Lead the execution of initiatives such as the Peer Circle program and Your Voice Matters, reviewing data to enhance program participation and ensure metrics are achieved; collaborate with the Senior Director of Engagement and Retention and stakeholders across marketing to manage delivery and optimization of the Member Benefits Perks newsletter. Full info HERE

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HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY/HIGH POINT, NC: Ensure high-quality production environments and provide technical leadership to faculty, staff, and students in live and recorded productions and play a role in supporting the school’s mission to provide industry-standard production experiences for students and will have opportunities to contribute to the development of emerging media technologies. More info HERE

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE, MULTI-EPISODE TELEVISION PRODUCING >>
BOSTON UNIVERSITY – COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION/BOSTON, MA: Develope, produce, and manage scripted and unscripted multi-episodic series for linear television and/or streaming. Qualified applicants will be distinguished multi-platform practitioners with a significant body of “boots on the ground” work in the TV and streaming industry. The position will require in-class instruction and on-set exercises. Full info HERE

PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE: STUDIO AND/OR FIELD DIRECTING; MULTIPLE CAMERAS >>
BOSTON UNIVERSITY – COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION/BOSTON, MA: We seek a colleague with a significant body of practical work in television directing using multiple cameras for linear television and/or streaming platforms. Familiarity with visual effects and AI-supported tools is considered a plus. This position includes teaching directing of scripted and/or unscripted content using multiple cameras at many levels. Full info HERE

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE: VERTICAL FILMMAKING/CONTENT CREATOR >>
BOSTON UNIVERSITY – COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION/BOSTON, MA: We seek a colleague with a professional track record in the creation and development of original short-form content aimed at promoting, activating, and motivating young people through social activism, experimentation, entertainment, brand building, and audience engagement across today’s leading content platforms and social media ecosystems. More info HERE

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SALES DIRECTOR – OMG
MOONBUG ENTERTAINMENT
NEW YORK, NY
Deliver and exceed sales revenue targets as well as build, manage and grow a strategic account list with a focus on Omnicom agencies and their clients directly, within the northeast. Ability to navigate holding company structure and negotiate strategic partnerships with key stakeholders (ratecards, preferred programmatic deals, content deals, etc.). More info HERE

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ATHLETE TO ATHLETE/SANTA MONICA, CA: Lead the performance marketing team across Meta Ads and new paid digital channels (TikTok, YouTube, Google, etc.) as well as build and execute a roadmap for channel expansion and profitable scale. Develop and run structured testing frameworks. Partner with Creative Strategist on ad briefs, testing priorities, and creative feedback loops. Full info HERE

NATIONAL SALES MANAGER>>
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ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
>>
NTD/WASHINGTON, DC: Pitch story ideas and write scripts/segment outlines as well as research guests and interview topics. Book guests and coordinate interviews. Help with logistics and sometimes field production. Support shoots and ensure production runs smoothly. Review footage and work with editors to shape final episodes. Write headlines, teasers, and social posts. Full info HERE

DIRECTOR, HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION
>>
THE JIM HENSON COMPANY/HOLLYWOOD, CA: Responsible for all HR functions and oversight of administrative and management needs. This strategic role is charged with operating from a customer service driven viewpoint that prioritizes employee satisfaction as well as enforce legally compliant policies, increase efficiency by implementing administrative and record-keeping best practices. Full info HERE

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THE E.W. SCRIPPS COMPANY/SALT LAKE CITY: Leverage our suite of advertising solutions to unlock growth opportunities for local and national businesses. Play a role in driving the station’s revenue goals as well as serving as the home station for Utah’s new NHL team. Collaborate with our production team to create campaigns that connect our clients with their customers in meaningful ways. Full info HERE

DIGITAL MEDIA BUYER >>
FURMAN ROTH ADVERTISING/NY(HYBRID): Plan, launch, and optimize digital marketing campaigns across various paid media channels (including Display, Google products, Paid Social, CTV, and Programmatic, etc.) while managing budgets effectively. Support the execution of media plans across platforms, overseeing targeting, budget allocation, and performance tracking to drive campaign success. Full info HERE

ACCOUNT DIRECTOR; CTV BRAND PARTNERSHIPS – MID WEST/WEST COAST

FUTURE TODAY
REMOTE
Build, maintain and expand a pipeline of sales targets, contacts, and sales opportunities leveraging your relationships with a heavy focus on new business revenue. Build/nurture relationships with the investment, strategy, precision and digital agencies as well as clients. Also maintain an ongoing knowledge of the streaming media landscape. Full info HERE

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THE SHADE ROOM/REMOTE: Develop and execute a revenue growth strategy to drive direct advertising, branded content, and sponsorship sales as well as lead the development of compelling advertising and branded content offerings tailored for TSR’s audience and cultivate and maintain strong relationships with key advertisers, media agencies, and brand partners. Full info HERE

PROFESSIONAL LECTURER OF COMMUNICATION/SPORTS BROADCASTING >>
MARIST UNIVERSITY/ POUGHKEEPSIE, NY: Teach studio and field broadcasting and new media courses in sports media and journalism as well as be able to teach a studio course on producing a newscast and help students live stream a podcast or produce short-form feature content suitable for social media streaming. Also demonstrate through their teaching, professional activity, and service. Full info HERE

SALES LEAD – AGENCY PARTNERSHIPS

UPWAVE
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Build and manage relationships with our agency partners – mostly targeting media buyers and planners – and help them see the value of adding Upwave measurement to The Trade Desk campaigns. You will both leverage your existing network and open new doors to achieve aggressive but achievable sales targets. Full info HERE

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