Top execs from traditional media, taking the CES stage to talk about Universal Ads, the new venture aimed at competing with Big Tech for small and mid-sized businesses, also offered opinions on Meta’s fact-checking turnaround. Just different ones. Given the increasing concerns about the social media environment, Meta’s decision “certainly strengthens the value proposition” of Universal Ads, said James Rooke, President of Comcast Advertising FreeWheel. Added Ryan Gould, EVP, Sales – Streaming, Digital, and Advanced Advertising at WBD about CNN, “The reality is, we don’t need to moderate our content.”

As for Universal Ads, “We talk a lot about competition…but when we’re talking about SMBs we’re not competing at a very granular scale there for those very long tail advertisers. So, coming together makes a ton of sense,” said Jeff Collins, President, Advertising Sales, Marketing and Brand Partnerships Fox Corporate. “Our take at Fox was Fox on its own or another major media company on its own didn’t necessarily have the overall scale that could compete with the social media networks. So now together, I think we finally have that scale.” Said Mark Marshall, Chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships NBCUniversal, “Because it’s a new category, I don’t think [Universal Ads] will be anything other than additive. We’re now going to be able to reach advertisers in new ways that we actually couldn’t afford to do.”

Starting in April, WPP employees will be required to work in the office at least four days per week, including two Fridays a month. “I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person,” wrote CEO Mark Read in a memo to staff. “The data from across WPP agencies shows that higher levels of office attendance are associated with stronger employee engagement, improved client survey scores and better financial performance. More of our clients are moving in this direction and expecting it of the teams who work with them.”

Nexstar Media Group and NBCUniversal have reached a multi-year agreement to renew NBC Television Network affiliations in 33 markets across the country, including 29 stations owned by Nexstar, three owned by Mission Broadcasting, Inc., and one owned by White Knight Broadcasting, Inc. Together, the 33 stations reach more than 14 million US television households.

About a half hour before Donald Trump’s Fox News town hall last January, the questions he was to be asked were fed to the candidate’s team by a Fox insider, writes Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt in his forthcoming book, Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power. The heads up allowed Trump’s answers to be “workshopped,” said Isenstadt. “While we do not have any evidence of this occurring, and Alex Isenstadt has conveniently refused to release the images for fact checking, we take these matters very seriously and plan to investigate should there prove to be a breach within the network,” responded a Fox spokesperson.

The upcoming third season of Prime Video’s “Harlem” will be its last. “I’m beyond grateful to the whole team at Amazon for giving me the chance of a lifetime to tell these four Black women’s stories and shoot it in the city I love: Harlem. It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m honored to see the impact it’s made in the culture, as well as the impact it’s had on all of us who’ve been blessed to work on it,” said creator, writer and executive producer Tracy Oliver. The drama’s final run begins Thursday, January 23.

Starting February 1, Family Entertainment TV will begin airing original, uncut versions of most of the classic TV series and movies on the network. “For decades, TV series in the classic genre have been aired in a truncated fashion on broadcast and cable outlets,” said Adam Sumrall, EVP of FETV and FMC. “Starting in February, FETV will move in an exciting new direction by re-introducing the original, uncut episodes to our viewers. Each day, all of us at FETV think about how to make the viewer experience better, and this is an important step in enhancing that experience.”

Guy Fieri, his wife and his sons take to the seas on the Carnival Mardi Gras in “Guy’s Ultimate Family Cruise,” in a special airing Friday, January 31 at 9p on Food Network.

Amazon Ads unveiled a SQL generator for Amazon Marketing Cloud, a generative AI capability that helps advertisers more easily develop insights from their AMC signals. The new capability provides a natural language interface through which advertisers can generate SQL queries for their desired audience use case, eliminating the need to create the code manually and reducing query development time. Advertisers then run the queries in AMC to create their new audience and activate the audience in Amazon DSP and ads console. “With the SQL generator, we’re bringing the power of generative AI to help advertisers more quickly unlock value from their data and our shopping and streaming signals to execute truly full-funnel advertising strategies,” said Paula Despins, VP of Ads Measurement. “Not only has this capability boosted productivity, but it has helped advertisers explore novel use cases and audience segments, helping them grow their brand and optimize their media spend across streaming TV, audio, and digital channels.”

Seventy percent of marketing leaders report struggling to connect with audiences due to fragmented martech stacks and identity challenges, according to new Forrester Consulting research commissioned by TransUnion. Two-thirds report juggling 16 or more martech solutions. To succeed, “It’s not about changing your stack but leveraging identity and data tools to connect these disconnected tools,” said Matt Spiegel, EVP and Head of TruAudience Marketing Solutions at TransUnion. “Without that connection, inefficiencies become significant concerns. We hear from teams every day struggling to bring it all together. But when they do, the difference is massive.”

DirecTV Advertising announced the programmatic enablement of its linear satellite inventory. Powered by the company’s proprietary ad tech stack, DirecTV Axis, programmatic buyers will now have access to increased inventory, scale and untapped audiences across satellite and streaming. “In today’s rapidly evolving media landscape, buyers require a new level of flexibility. We’re excited to set TV free,” said Amy Leifer, Chief Advertising Sales Officer, DirecTV Advertising. “By enabling satellite households to be accessed programmatically, we’re creating flexible, seamless solutions for marketers to reach premium TV inventory.”

Monumental Sports will broadcast “A-10 Hoops Talk: Beyond the Paint,” a nine-episode interview show covering Atlantic 10 (A-10) college basketball. The program debuts Sunday, January 12 at 11:30a.

Scott Kohn has joined Reelz as EVP & Head of Advertising Sales. Kohn was most recently EVP of national advertising sales at Warner Bros. Discovery.

Today’s Trivia Question
On “Seinfeld” (1989-98), what kind of (fictional) fruit did Kramer love that was only ripe for two weeks a year? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four answers per time zone.)