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Monday June 28, 2021

Amazon is pushing deeper into podcasting, following up its purchase of podcast network Wondery with the acquisition of Art19. “Art19 is an innovative company that enables podcast creators to manage, distribute, analyze and monetize their work, and we’re thrilled to have them on the team,” said Amazon. “Together, we will be able to expand our offerings and even better serve your podcasting needs.”

The cookie isn’t crumbling as quickly as expected. On Thursday, Google announced plans to officially cease support for third-party cookies by late 2023, a postponement from an initial timeframe of early 2022. “While there’s considerable progress with this initiative, it’s become clear that more time is needed across the ecosystem to get this right,” said Vinay Goel, the director of privacy engineering for Google’s Chrome web browser, adding that Google wants to “avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content.”

At its Windows 11 event, Microsoft made the surprise announcement that it will make Android apps available on the next version of its operating system. Android apps will run natively on Windows 11 and be downloadable from Amazon’s Appstore via the new Windows store.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced three e-commerce updates: Shops on WhatsApp and Marketplace, allowing customers to chat with a business before buying something; Shop Ads, aimed at providing a more individualized shopping experience, including AR try-on experiences; and Instagram and AI-based Visual Search, enabling people to upload their own photos to find similar items.

IBM Watson Advertising announced an effort to explore the role of AI in detecting and mitigating bias in advertising. The six-month research initiative, conducted in partnership with the Ad Council, will explore:
* Incidence of bias in advertising – The prevalence and frequency of bias in campaigns through the analysis of performance data.
* Role of signals in determining bias – How heavily signals, which refer to the context in which an advertisement is delivered, impact bias.
* Capabilities of AI to potentially mitigate bias – How useful AI can be in identifying instances of bias, and what can be done to fully capture the power of AI to potentially reduce occurrences of bias in advertisements.
“We find ourselves at a moment in history where a long-overdue discourse on socioeconomic inequalities is dominating the national agenda and compelling action,” said Bob Lord, SVP, Worldwide Ecosystems at IBM. “Our hope is that AI can be the catalyst for reducing unwanted bias in advertising, just as it is helping to transform the advertising industry as it rebuilds for an era without third party cookies.”

The House Judiciary Committee voted 29-12 last week to advance the first of a handful of bills aimed at big tech. The bill, widely viewed as the least controversial of the six being considered, would increase merger filing fees to give the government more money to enforce antitrust laws.

Innovid, the ad delivery and measurement platform for CTV, has entered into a definitive merger agreement with ION Acquisition Corp. 2 Ltd., a special purpose acquisition company. The combined company will operate under the Innovid name and will trade on a US national exchange. “Innovid is entering an exciting new chapter of growth as a public company, a major milestone that corresponds with rising adoption and demands for streaming television,” said Zvika Netter, Co-Founder and CEO at Innovid. “The rapid shift of viewership from linear TV to streaming has driven marketers to make CTV a strategic investment focus.” The transaction is expected to close in 4Q21.

ATTN: is launching a studio on TikTok that provides consulting, creative and production services for brands that want to reach diverse audiences on the platform. Partners at launch include Geico, Google, Madewell, MTV and Unilever.

Evan Shapiro, former head of cable nets IFC and Pivot is launching a dark comedy series to be hosted as a NFT on the Macroverse platform. “Darkland,” which launches in mid-July, offers a multi-page experiences across devices and enables creators to launch books on the platform. The project represents an evolution in the nonfungible token-verse as NFTs typically have been available only as single entities.

Playdemic, the mobile games studio behind Golf Clash, has a new owner. AT&T and WarnerMedia sold the company to Electronic Arts for $1.4 billion in cash in the latest round of deal-making leading up to WarnerMedia’s move to the Discovery fold. The remaining Warner Bros. Games portfolio is expected to land at Discovery post-merger.

Audible inked an exclusive multiproject development deal with Kenya Barris and his production company, Khalabo Ink Society. Projects from the collaboration will range across genres including original scripted multicast fiction, unscripted nonfiction, audio-documentary, and journalistic audio.

YouTube scored a win in the EU this week. The European Court of Justice ruled
the company and other Internet platforms are not liable for copyright-protected content users upload, but it noted a platform operator still could be found liable for copyright infringement if it “has specific knowledge that protected content is available illegally on its platform and refrains from expeditiously deleting it or blocking access to it.”

Collaborative analytics platform Facet announced it has raised $8 million in seed funding led by Harrison Metal with participation from Bedrock and Breakpoint Capital. Angel investors Gokul Rajaram, Slava Rubin along with Brian Long, and Andrew Jones from Attentive Mobile also join the series seed round which will help Facet further enable businesses to unify analytics and empower collaborative data exploration in the cloud.

Twitter announced it will begin rolling out applications for Super Follows, allowing creators to offer paywalled content, and Clubhouse-like Ticketed Spaces, enabling users to set ticket prices and limit how many tickets are sold. Applications are only available on mobile.

PREMION
LEADING THE EVOLUTION IN LOCAL OTT & CTV ADVERTISING

WINNER: 2021 TECH LEADERSHIP AWARD
Best OTT & Streaming Technology
WINNER: 2020 CYNOPSIS ADTECH AWARD
Outstanding Local Advertising Solution

TAG CERTIFIED AGAINST AD FRAUD

125+ Leading TV & Media Brands, Audience Targeting, Closed-Loop Attribution
LEARN MORE AT PREMION.COM

OpenAP and Xandr announced a strategic alliance that will enable OpenAP’s OpenID audiences inside Invest TV, Xandr’s buyer self-service platform for linear television. Buyers using Invest TV will be able to activate unified audiences across US premium TV publishers and utilize those audiences in their Invest TV buying workflows. “The collaboration between Xandr and OpenAP is a gamechanger for both media buyers and sellers, removing friction that has existed with executing campaigns on advanced audiences at scale,” said Mike Welch, EVP & GM of Xandr. “We built Invest TV to streamline and unify buying of advanced TV audiences, and we heard the message loud and clear that the ability to plan, buy and measure on the premium national TV footprint was critical.”

Telmar, provider of media-planning and buying software and data to ad agencies, is offering a cookie-less identity data solution developed by ID5. ID5 claims its solution is 100% consumer privacy-compliant. Telmar also said it is joining “Inside,” a partnership program developed by ID5 for technology and media companies to support the distribution of its cookie-less IDs.

Tubi announced it will be the first CTV publisher to implement Unified ID 2.0, an upgraded alternative to third-party cookies that serves as a connective tissue in cookie-less environments, such as CTV apps. Initially developed by The Trade Desk, Unified ID 2.0 represents an ID solution that is interoperable and aims to address consumers’ desire for more transparency and control. Prebid.org has agreed to serve as an independent operator for Unified ID 2.0 later this year.

MNTN acquired Ryan Reynolds’ and George Dewey’s creative advertising shop Maximum Effort Marketing. The adtech company will retain its identity and continue to operate as a creative agency within MNTN, with Reynolds now set to become MNTN’s chief creative officer. Dewey will serve as chief brand officer and maintain his role as Maximum Effort’s president.

VidMob announced Brand Governance, a solution that combines AI-powered creative auditing technology, creative scoring and media performance analytics to help marketers understand how visual elements in ads influence business results. Brand Governance enables marketers to monitor adherence to brand mandatories and media platform best practices, as well as get recommendations and production support to address non-compliant creative.

Univision Communications announced plans for a global streaming service, including an expanded AVOD as well as a new subscription tier, set to launch in the US and Latin America in 2022. The service will be fueled by Televisa’s content library and i IP as well as a slate of new originals. The existing PrendeTV, VIX and Univision NOW services will be unified into one brand. Specifics for the service will be announced following the close of the Televisa-Univision merger later this year.

AVOD VUit announced the addition of hyperlocal programming. Weather Metrics Vision, known as WM Vision, is now available, offering live content and lapse videos of weather events. Also available is “Small Batch Sessions,” featuring musical talent based in the US. Fashion vodcaster Mermaid Soup will broadcast fashion trends coming out of LA when it launches on the service shortly. VUit has also entered an agreement with the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, to bring their historical content focused on the automotive industry to the platform.

Think FAST: Allen Media Group free streaming platform Local Now has added several free ad-supported streaming television channels: Shopping channels QVC and HLN; Demand Africa; Qwest TV Mix; Qwest Jazz & Beyond and Qwest Classical. Local Now also offers a tier of more than 30 original channels spanning family, comedy, horror, news and more.

Time spent watching AVOD grew by 200% from May 2020 to May 2021, according to a report from TVision. Time spent viewing SVOD rose by 100%, while time spent with linear viewing dipped by 13% during the same period. TVision, which focuses on viewer attention, found that the AVOD shows with the highest attention scores were Hulu’s “Letterkenny,” Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Discovery,” and Hulu’s “The Hardy Boys.”

VICE has launched their FAST channel on Samsung TV Plus. Programming will include TV library content, digital content adapted for TV and a selection of VICE World News titles.

Cinedigm announced a partnership with The Country Network, to expand the channel’s footprint across the streaming ecosystem via the creation of FAST, AVOD and MVPD offerings for distribution via connected TVs, digital set-top boxes, media-streaming devices, as well as the web.

Midnight Pulp’s streaming app is now available VIZIO SmartCast TVs. “Midnight Pulp has constantly added exciting new genre-bending content while evolving over the last two years as a juggernaut in engaging audiences with its powerful niche content stew of the best horror, thriller and action entertainment,” said Matthew Kiernan, Midnight Pulp Channel Manager for Midnight Pulp owner DMR.

Fox News Media’s upcoming AVOD streaming weather service, Fox Weather, has signed six meteorologists to helm morning, daytime and evening programming across the platform when it launches later this year. Meteorologists Jason Frazer, Britta Merwin, Craig Herrera, Brigit Mahoney, Nick Kosir, and Stephen Morgan will lead the platform’s coverage.

Fuse Media announced the beta launch of new streaming service Fuse+. Available on Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, Fuse+ will have its official launch later this year, including on more connected TV platforms and mobile devices, and featuring exclusive original content.

Whip Media and The Entertainment Globalization Association are partnering to provide a new data report for the entertainment industry with cross-platform insights on global streaming across multiple countries. The new bi-monthly report, called the Global Intelligence Tracker, ranks the most viewed streaming original television series among US viewers and highlights their corresponding performance in other global streaming markets, offering a snapshot of how the shows are resonating with audiences around the world.