Linear TV remains the dominant viewing platform for major events, although streaming takes a big bite, according to AdImpact’s Q1 Television Insights report. Key insights include:
· During this year’s Super Bowl, Fox accounted for 41% of all viewers, while Fox Deportes accounted for 10% of all viewership. Linear was down from last year’s Super Bowl, which accounted for 58.5% of the audience.
· Viewership of the Academy Awards was heavily skewed towards linear, accounting for 64.4% of the audience, followed by YouTube/YouTubeTV at 19.4%.
· The 2025 Presidential Inauguration reached peak viewership of 56.3 million viewers. Linear viewing was 54% of the total, with other streaming platforms accounting for 29% and YouTube and YouTubeTV accounting for 17%.

Warner Bros. Discovery arrives at NAB this week with a healthy handful of syndicated shows cleared in at least 90% of the country. In addition to first-run shows “Jennifer Hudson” and “Extra,” sitcoms “The Big Bang Theory,” Young Sheldon,” “Bob Hearts Abishola,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Friends” have hit the 90% mark. Library episodes of “The People’s Court” and “Judge Mathis” made it to 85%. “We are delighted with the performance of our shows and the results they deliver to our television station partners,” said David Decker, President, Content Sales, Warner Bros. Discovery. “Syndication remains an important way to reach our loyal fans.”

After posting back to back months of double-digit growth, US ad spend reduced significantly in February from 10% growth in January to 2.8%. It’s unclear if this is an arbiter of what’s to come or just a bump in the road, but all signs point toward economic uncertainty and geopolitics as leading factors.

Video tech platform Vimeo is launching Vimeo Streaming, enabling video creators to more easily launch and monetize their own services. “We are giving creators more ways to connect with and gain a deeper understanding of their audiences, more ways to monetize their content, and higher grade security,” said Philip Moyer, CEO of Vimeo. “Vimeo is also breaking down language barriers for creators with our new AI services. We believe creators should be in control of their work and how they are paid; so we’re taking the technologies that are usually only afforded by the biggest platforms and putting it in the hands of our customers, at a fraction of the cost.”

The ad industry, grappling with regulations proposed last December by the Biden Administration, is turning to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to reject the proposal and keep the status quo. The organization Privacy for America told the agency this week that the potential regulations “would harm consumers, the economy, and small businesses by hindering data services companies’ practices that provide valuable and desired offerings to the marketplace.”

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Prime Video street racing series “Motorheads” drops Tuesday, May 20. The show follows a group of outsiders who form an unlikely friendship over a mutual love of automobiles.

Season seven of “The Wizard of Paws” kicks off Thursday, April 10 at 5p on BYUtv. Derrick Campana’s dog Rosie jumps aboard this go-round.

Road trip comedy “Wish You Were Queer” premieres Thursday, May on OUTtv. The docuseries follows best friends Michael Henry and Tim Murray hitting the road across Middle America, meeting locals, and diving into queer culture.

“Wolf Man” starts streaming Friday, April 18 on Peacock. The Universal Pictures film offers a modern take on the classic monster story.

HBO Original film “Mountainhead,” written, directed, and executive produced by Jesse Armstrong (“Succession”), debuts Saturday, May 31 at 8p. The film, following a group of billionaire friends who get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis, marks Armstrong’s feature directorial debut.

It’s official: As of Monday April 7, Meta will no longer have any fact-checkers in the US. The shift in policy comes three months after a January announcement where the social behemoth loosened content moderation rules. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the moderation changes.

Trump has given TikTok an extended stay, pushing the platform’s latest deadline to find a US owner by 75 days. A ban was supposed to go in to effect April 5, but with the extension, the platform has more time to finalize a sale. “My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump posted.

Is social media harmful to teens? TikTok and Meta have teamed up to take on the matter, asking an appellate court to dismiss such claims, noting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prevents forward movement. “As this Court has long recognized, Congress’s intent in enacting Section 230 was to promote the continued development of the Internet by removing the chilling effect that even the threat of suit would have on the publication of third-party content,” Meta wrote in a brief joined by TikTok.

Weekly releases are gaining ground on the Netflix “binge model.” This past week saw “The White Lotus”, “Reacher” and “1923” hold the top three spots in the Samba TV Weekly Wrap streaming Top 10, marking yet another week with Netflix NOT on the podium.

New England sports network NESN’s Opening Day cross-platform total audience increased by more than 100% from 2024’s Opening Day, while total viewership minutes increased by more than 140%. On linear, NESN registered a 4.62 household rating, up 148% from 2024 and its highest on Opening Day since 2021. Powering that growth was an expanded, younger demographic with adults aged 25-54 increasing 155%.

Today’s Trivia Question
In which HBO special were Blake Lively and Amanda Seyfried guest stars? (Email your answer to trivia@cynopsis.com and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: a limit of four answers per time zone.)