A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HEARST

HEARST ANYSCREEN
A Higher Standard in OTT

Reach your audience, anytime, anywhere, on any screen. Hearst Anyscreen offers a targeted OTT platform that provides a single, centralized access point to the streaming TV marketplace.

With a unique focus on quality, Hearst Anyscreen delivers premium “living room experience” television that is served primarily on Connected TVs.

Twitter is introducing new controls that will enable companies to keep their ads from appearing above or below tweets containing certain keywords. The move is aimed at attracting brands that pulled ads from Twitter amid reports on the rise of hate speech since the company’s purchase in October by Elon Musk. Twitter is also offering advertisers incentives like matching ad spending, reports The Wall Street Journal. Advertising that runs before the end of the year could qualify to have the spend (of at least $500,000) matched, up to $1 million.

Meanwhile, Twitter rival Mastadon has seen traffic increase from 1.4 million to 9.5 million visits since Musk’s Twitter acquisition, according to Financial World. About 2.4 million of those visits were from the US.

Apple announced an expansion of its App Store pricing system that offers developers access to 700 additional price points, for a total of 900. US developers can set prices for apps, in-app purchases or subscriptions as low as $0.29 or as high as $10,000, and in rounded numbers rather than those ending in $0.99.

Apple also said that starting in 2023, users will be able to enhance their Apple ID and iCloud account protection using hardware Security Keys, offering a physical hardware device to serve as the second layer of two-factor authentication for accounts. Trusted devices already signed in to a user’s Apple ID won’t be signed out when the user authenticates using the Security Key feature.

The Federal Trade Commission is pursuing a lawsuit to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard. The FTC argues the deal would enable Microsoft to suppress gaming competitors.

Someone need to hear from Santa? Celebrity greeting app Cameo has launched Cameo Kids, a video messaging service that features personalized videos from animated characters like Thomas the Tank Engine, as well as Santa. More characters will be introduced on a rolling basis.

Meta threatened to pull news content from its platforms if legislation favoring news media is added to the annual defense authorization bill. The proposed bill, known as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, would create a four-year exemption under US antitrust law allowing news outlets to bargain collectively against social media platforms for a larger share of ad revenue in exchange for their news content. “If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation,” said Meta said in a statement, “we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether rather than submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions.”

Giphy and content accessibility solutions provider Scribely have teamed, making Giphy the first GIF provider to have alt text descriptions. By partnering with Scribely, alt text will automatically be read aloud via screen reader devices for Giphy’s most popular pieces of content based on top search terms, with plans to gradually roll out alt text to more of the library.

Short-form digital content publisher TheSoul Publishing has acquired a majority stake in Underscore Talent, a management firm within the creator economy. The investment allows Underscore Talent access to TheSoul Publishing’s tools, technology, and production resources.

Anne Rice fans had to move quickly to snap up Orange Comet’s latest collection with AMC Networks. The “Interview with the Vampire” drop, a limited collection of 3,333 Immortal NFT passes, sold out within 93 minutes of going live.

Snap boasts 300,000 developers building AR products and will soon allow creators to build Lenses that feature digital goods that can be purchased with Snap Tokens, the company announced at its annual Lens Fest. Snap has also partnered with Adidas for a Bitmoji Fashion Drop.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HEARST

HEARST ANYSCREEN
A Higher Standard in OTT

Reach your audience, anytime, anywhere, on any screen. Hearst Anyscreen offers a targeted OTT platform that provides a single, centralized access point to the streaming TV marketplace.

With a unique focus on quality, Hearst Anyscreen delivers premium “living room experience” television that is served primarily on Connected TVs.

ADVERTISING

Fuyllo, the platform providing data-driven marketing and regulatory solutions, has unveiled Fyllo Connect, an interactive retail media network built for retailers and brands that want to reach cannabis consumers. “We heard from retailers that they want to be able to drive in-store growth and develop new revenue streams,” said Chad Bronstein, CEO and Founder, Fyllo. “Fyllo’s Retail Suite allows them to do just that, whether it’s by automating promotions, increasing conversions or strengthening loyalty.”

NBCUniversal and Walmart embarked on “the next iteration of livestream shopping” with the launch of a shopping show, “LivE! Deals for the Holiday Season.” The interactive half-hour episode last week enabled viewers to ask questions about products in real time.

Economic conditions herald a slowdown, but ad sales will still grow, according to forecasts from GroupM, Magna and Zenith. Global ad spend in 2022 is projected to grow by 6.5% in 2022, versus an estimate of 8.4% in June, said GroupM, and grow 5.9% in 2023, down from a prior projection of 6.4%. Citing a “deteriorating macroeconomic outlook,” Magna lowered its expectations of growth in 2023 to 5%, versus 7% this year. Zenith predicts 4.5% growth for 2022, down from a previous estimate of 7.3%. In the US, Magna expects financial services companies and consumer products manufacturers to spend less in on advertising in 2023, while spending by entertainment companies, travel and betting companies will grow.

Ad investment in national linear TV in October dipped by 8% year-over-year, but the month had the highest investment in linear TV compared to the rest of 2022 to date, according to Standard Media Index. Other findings include:
· Upfront demand is flat, and scatter sharply fell: The Upfront / Scatter split reached an unprecedented 80% / 10% of monthly National TV ad dollars in October 2022.
· Sports has been a market stabilizer: Although the genre receded 10% YoY, investment levels remain 7% above pre-pandemic 2019 ad spend.
· Cable is stable: Cable had single-digit declines compared to Broadcast and Syndication. Within Cable Sports, NFL yielded the main influx of dollars with Soccer, NBA, and Racing also performing well.
· Pharma, General Business and Travel spend was up, while tech and financial was down: Pharma, Gen Biz and Travel increased their presence across all TV genres for the and have also expanded YoY for three consecutive months. However, Tech and Financial Services pulled back sharply.

Out of home advertising revenue increased 11% in 3Q22 compared to the previous year, accounting for $1.94 billion, based on figures released by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America. Digital OOH continues to power overall OOH growth as the segment jumped 14%compared to the year prior. For 2022 year-to-date, OOH is up 25.7% and comparable with the historical YTD high set in 2019 at $6.4 billion. “Key sectors are increasingly investing more dollars – in particular, political spending in out of home hit record highs,” said Anna Bager, President and CEO, OAAA. “It confirms OOH’s ability to effectively reach audiences at national and local levels and is surely a harbinger of more momentum to come.”

ViralGains and LiveRamp announced a partnership that will enable marketers and advertisers to extend ViralGains’ Zero-Party & VoiceAlike® Audiences across 400+ partners in LiveRamp’s digital portfolio. “ViralGains’ Zero-Party and VoiceAlike® Audiences have been invaluable compared to standard third-party advertising audiences,” said Cindy Brown, Chief Revenue Officer of ViralGains. “It sets marketers up for success with a solution that addresses the deprecation of cookies.”

MEASUREMENT

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement announced five new Working Groups and the appointment of their respective industry leader Chairs:
· Media Measurement – Focused on exploring topics core to CIMM’s mission of improving cross-platform TV and video measurement. Chair: Howard Shimmel, President, Janus Strategy & Insights
· Multi-Currency – In support of the transition to a multi-currency TV market. Chair: Joan FitzGerald, Founder and CEO, Data ImpacX
· Content – Content research and measurement across the TV marketplace (from ratings and metadata to analytics). Chair: Lisa Heimann, EVP, Analytics, Insights & Measurement, NBCUniversal
· TV Data – Optimizing and supporting the new TV data ecosystem (from data quality, IDR, and matching processes to clean room infrastructure and attribution). Chair: Jonathan Steuer, CEO and Co-Founder at Anonymous Media Research
· CTV/Streaming/Programmatic – Measurement and metrics across the CTV, streaming and programmatic ecosystem. Chair: Frans Vermeulen, VP, Strategy & Market Development, Media Vertical, TransUnion
“I am very pleased to welcome our fantastic Chairs, all of whom are uniquely equipped to support CIMM in our effort to fund, test and develop new ideas that promote innovation and explore new high quality ways to measure audiences across traditional and new media,” said Jon Watts, Managing Director, CIMM.

Innovid has struck a partnership with Kinetiq to power second-by-second linear ad-occurrence data directly into InnovidXP, the new measurement platform built for converged TV. The addition of Kinetiq data, alongside Innovid’s CTV footprint, establishes a source of automatically detected TV ad airings that cover the converged marketplace. “Integrating Kinetiq’s best-in-class technology and global ad catalog within InnovidXP is another step toward providing the most advanced, always-on measurement infrastructure for converged TV,” said Jo Kinsella, President of InnovidXP. “Kinetiq’s real-time linear data powers actionable insights, and its local and national linear coverage expands InnovidXP’s footprint across the converged TV ecosystem in a way that makes it fast and simple for advertisers to achieve cross-platform TV analytics.”

STREAMING

While Disney+ had lower churn than total streaming in 3Q22, one in four subscribers could trade down to the streamer’s AVOD offering (launched Thursday), according to an analysis by Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand service. Other findings include:
· As stacking grew, the proportion of new subscribers who were stacking in Q3 also grew. Disney+ over-indexes in stacked users.
· Disney+ had 8% share of screentime among AVOD streamers in 3Q22.
· Original content, new releases and variety of classics have become important Disney sign up drivers, while being ad-free remains a strength.
· Disney+ is still winning on new release films, variety of classics and children’s content.
· The ease of search, interface and value for money have become key pain points for Disney+ subscribers.
· Overall, SVOD is declining, driven by SVOD only streamers. Growth is coming from streamers who have some combination of SVOD and FAST/AVOD.

“Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” has joined a rarified club, passing one billion hours viewed on Netflix in its first 60 days. “Squid Game” and “Stranger Things 4” are the only other series to make the cut.

WMX, the artist services, media & creative content division of Warner Music Group, has partnered with Roku to launch three FAST channels exclusively on The Roku Channel: WMX Pop, WMX Rock, and WMX Hip-Hop. The channels are now available to stream for free on The Roku Channel through the service’s Live TV Guide.

Cynopsis Team