The “21st Century FTC Act,” a bill introduced on Friday, would empower the agency to fine companies the first time they commit an unfair or deceptive practice, and streamline the process to issue regulations. “For too long, the FTC has been hamstrung in its ability to promulgate effective rules of the road for consumers and penalize companies that harm our friends and neighbors,” said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Florida) when introducing the bill.

Automattic, parent of Tumblr and WordPress, is acquiring podcast app Pocket Casts from a collective of public radio groups. “We will explore building deep integrations with WordPress.com and Pocket Casts, making it easier to distribute and listen to podcasts,” said a WordPress blog post.

Users of Amazon’s Alexa can now hear the voices of Shaquille O’Neal and Melissa McCarthy give them the weather, read poems, play songs and more, instead of Alexa’s default voice. The celeb voices are available for $4.99 each.

Facebook responded to President Biden’s blaming social media platforms for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. “They’re killing people,” Biden told reporters on Friday. Not so, said a Facebook spokesperson. “The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet,” said the rep. “More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period.”

Facebook is spending over $1 billion to reward creators for content on Facebook and Instagram through 2022, announced CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Investing in creators isn’t new for us, but I’m excited to expand this work over time,” Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. In addition to bonus programs that reward creators for reaching certain milestones, seed funding will be available to help produce content.

Twitter Fleets is expiring. Twitter announced its disappearing tweets function, which launched in November 2020 and enables users to post pics, videos, reactions or text that disappears after 24 hours, will be no more as of August 3. Citing a lack of interest by users, the company said going forward users will see active Space—Twitter’s live social audio rooms—at the top of their feeds.

In other Twitter news, the platform at the end of last year saw a surge in worldwide government demands to take down content posted by journalists and news outlets. The company noted 199 accounts of verified news sites and journalists were “subject to 361 legal demands” to take down content, a 26 percent increase over the first half of 2020.

Discovery Inc. and YouTube are teaming to deliver on-demand Summer Olympics content and advertising to audiences in Europe. Eurosports’ YouTube channel will host on-demand highlights, daily recaps and more during the Games, as well as live-streamed coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies. “Working with YouTube to provide on-demand Tokyo 2020 content is a great opportunity to make new connections with these audiences,” said Scott Young, head of sports production and content, Discovery Sports. “It offers them new ways to find our content and be introduced to Discovery’s full Olympic Games offer.”

Genvid Technologies, a livestreaming tech firm that enabled Facebook’s Rival Peak, raised $113 million in a Series C funding round it will use to establish an entertainment subsidiary focused on interactive live events. The company also tapped former Netflix executive Cindy Holland in an advisory role. New investors include Third Point Ventures, Cobalt Capital and LightShed Ventures.

Co-viewing apps are increasingly popular with young audiences, with 23% of viewers saying they have watched via a co-viewing app or service this year, up 20% over 2020, according to Hub Entertainment Research’s “Evolution of the TV Set” report. There are big differences in co-viewing by age – 41% of viewers A16-34 say they’ve used a co-viewing app, compared with 23% of those A35-54 and only 3% of those 55+. “Co-viewing apps and services are becoming increasingly important, no doubt driven in part by recent pandemic experiences,” said David Tice, senior consultant to Hub and co-author of the study. “Content distributors and streaming services that help enable this behavior will increase their appeal to young adults overall, and in particular young men. This is an important consideration with the advent of fully or partially ad-supported streaming services and the desirability of these key demos to advertisers.”

Xandr renewed a contract with Microsoft that includes the extension of existing technology solutions, and the introduction of new ventures. Microsoft is extending its use of Xandr’s sell-side platform, Xandr Monetize, and its Global Supply Evangelism relationship with Xandr, as Microsoft expands and diversifies its monetization strategy. “Our renewal with Xandr, after ten successful years of partnership, extends globally-scaled programmatic access to Microsoft’s audience that marketers rely on today,” said Kya Sainsbury-Carter, VP, Global Partner Sales at Microsoft.

Google was slapped with a $592 million fine for failing to negotiate in good faith regarding compensation for French publishers and news agencies for their content. Google had been ordered in April 2020 to hold talks within three months with companies regarding compensation. “When the authority imposes injunctions on companies, they are required to apply them scrupulously, respecting their letter and their spirit,” said Isabelle de Silva, head of the French watchdog agency. “In the present case, this was unfortunately not the case.” The agency threatened additional fines of $1 million per day if Google fails to produce proposals within two months.

Comcast is rolling out new features on Xfinity X1, Xfinity Stream, and Xfinity Flex, to cover Olympic stories. “This year, new features make navigating the Games even easier and more personalized, taking the Olympics experience to a new level,” said Rebecca Heap, SVP, Video and Entertainment Services, Comcast Cable. “And now with Flex, we have the opportunity to leverage some of the best features of X1, like our voice remote and aggregated guide, to introduce the Olympics and all its passion, exhilaration and glory to even more Xfinity customers.”

WideOrbit announced the latest release of WO Network, the company’s network ad sales and commercial operations platform. “Both the Electronic Material Instructions module and the ADU Prediction Tool are game-changers for our broadcast and cable network customers, promising long-term, positive impact on revenue growth, cost savings, and improved efficiency,” said Arden Adair, WideOrbit’s Senior Director of Product Management for WO Network.

Nifty’s, Inc. launched Niftys.com, a social NFT platform dedicated to bringing digital collectibles to mainstream audiences. The new venture also announced a partnership with Warner Bros. that introduces a collection of limited-edition NFTs featuring characters from the live-action/animated film “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” starring LeBron James alongside the Looney Tunes. The film launched July 16 in theaters and on HBO Max; it will be available on HBO Max for 31 days from release.

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ADVERTISING

Verizon is partnering with VIZIO and Nielsen on new ad tech that helps advertisers understand unique TV audiences across linear and CTV, and prevent ad waste. Verizon Media’s Unified TV Report solution gives advertisers a more complete view of their linear TV investment in relation to their digital buys across Verizon Media DSP, with enhanced analytics capabilities to understand and optimize key outcomes in their cross-channel strategy, including the incremental reach achieved by their CTV and other digital media through Verizon Media as compared to their linear TV buy, overall frequency across linear and digital, as well as GRP and cost per household metrics.

Yelp announced Yelp Audiences, offering an opportunity for location-based, direct-to-consumer, consumer packaged goods, and online advertisers to reach Yelp’s audience at all stages of the buying cycle. Advertisers provide creative assets and Yelp delivers the advertisements on websites, mobile apps, and video streaming services through connected TV, based on the user’s purchase intent while on Yelp. Yelp launched the new advertising platform with KitchenAid.

GSTV (Gas Station TV) has signed a deal with Comscore to use the measurement company’s new place-based audience service. Comscore will report digital ad impressions, reach and frequency for the markets and demographics GSTV sells as part of its national video ad network.

Vistar Media, provider of programmatic technology for digital out-of-home, announced a Series B funding round of $30M from Lamar Advertising Company. Vistar is focused on helping digital signage networks transition beyond automation to revenue management, while enabling buyers to leverage data to drive media decisions and prove ROI through accurate measurement toward all KPIs.

Centro, provider of enterprise automation technology, announced a cookieless targeting feature that automatically recommends contextual categories based on a marketer’s best-performing audiences. The privacy-compliant contextual analysis is powered by Peer39. The contextual category recommendation technology is exclusively available in Basis by Centro.

Microsoft Advertising released Video Extensions, enabling advertisers to combine business information such as address, phone number, store rating or more webpage links with an ad, as well as video. Video Extensions are available in all Microsoft Advertising markets for the PC, but only in the US on mobile.

Omnichannel advertising platform Mediaocean has entered into an agreement to acquire ad management platform Flashtalking, combining Flashtalking’s solutions for primary ad serving, creative personalization, identity management, and verification with Mediaocean’s system of record. “Bringing together Mediaocean and Flashtalking is an incredible opportunity for our customers, employees, and the industry at large,” said Bill Wise, CEO of Mediaocean. “Flashtalking is the source of truth for digital and CTV ads and Mediaocean is the system of record for all media. Combined, we will deliver comprehensive and future-forward solutions for omnichannel advertising. Most importantly, our platform is not compromised by media ownership so we can focus solely on driving outcomes for marketers and their agency partners.”

Roku reported it doubled the upfront commitments from marketers that it had last year, with 42% of 2022 advertisers onboard that didn’t buy Roku last year. The streamer also noted two firsts: closing multi-year and client upfront agreements, and negotiations that took place the same time as broadcast network talks.

Innovid will manage third-party ads across NBC Olympics’ CTV apps, including NBC Sports and Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, using the Olympics Ad Manager. The service will be powered by Innovid as part of a new Olympics advertising suite, including NBCUniversal’s previously announced Olympics Ad Engine. Advertisers will have access to streamlined campaign management; short turnaround times; and MRC accreditation.

National CineMedia and Harena Data, an esports community aggregator, have entered in to an esports advertising and content monetization agreement. NCM will have the exclusive right to sell advertising across Harena Data’s ad-supported esports content and events in the US, including in movie theaters, on streaming media, and in place-based locations. “For brands, esports attracts a young demographic that is just like our core moviegoing audience, with extremely high levels of engagement,” said Scott Felenstein, NCM’s President, Sales, Marketing & Partnerships. “As it has grown from a niche advertising strategy to the mainstream, we believe esports will be appealing to brands that continue to try to find new ways to connect with cord-cutting, experience-driven Gen Z consumers.”

STREAMING

Netflix is expanding into video games. The streaming giant has hired Mike Verdu, former Electronic Arts and Facebook exec, to lead a bolder move into games than it has previously signaled. Netflix’s previous gaming forays have been primarily via licensing and merch partnerships, and interactive programming like “Bandersnatch.”

New US video subscribers dipped by 12.9% year-over-year in 2Q21, according to Kantar. Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand service also notes:
· Amazon regained the top spot for new subscribers for the first time since Q3 2020.
· Discovery+ jumped to #2 spot in new subscribers in its second full quarter of operation, winning one in 10 new SVOD subscribers.
· Netflix installed base fell to 2/3 of US subscribers, its lowest penetration, as viewers trade in for newer offers.
· The proportion of US households who have a video subscription has remained consistent at 74.6%, meaning there are now 95.8 million households with subscriptions in June 2021.
· Disney+’s “Wandavision” was the top-rated title for the second quarter in a row, with Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” in #2 and “Mare of Easttown” on HBO Max in third place.

Redbox is expanding its lineup of content available through its AVOD platform, which includes Free Live TV and Free On Demand. The service has added content from Shout! Factory, Legendary Television, Magnolia Pictures, and Relativity Media. “Redbox is building a home for audiences looking for the widest possible selection of entertainment at every price point, including free,” said Jason Kwong, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer.

CuriosityStream is now available on PlayStation 4 consoles. “PlayStation 4 has been our most requested platform from customers,” said Devin Emery, CuriosityStream’s Chief Product Officer and EVP of Content Strategy. “The PlayStation community is such a highly engaged audience and we are thrilled to bring a seamless integration of great curated content from CuriosityStream to PlayStation gamers.”

Kids animation studio Videogyan is teaming with VlogBox to distribute their content through multiple CTV platforms. For the initial phase of the partnership, VlogBox has developed Videogyan Kids channel on the Roku, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV streaming platforms. VlogBox will additionally handle maintenance, set up, and support for all upcoming applications.

Cynopsis Team