Thursday, October 1, 2026

Happy first day of October, readers! Check out what we’ve got for you today:

What Brands Are Getting Wrong About YouTube
Paramount’s Consent Decree Delay Is Lifted
BBC Studios Is Changing Up Its Strategy

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What Brands Are Getting Wrong About YouTube, According To The Former CMO Of General Motors

By Allison Schiff

Most brands have a YouTube presence. Far fewer have a YouTube strategy.

The paid team runs ads; the owned team manages the channel, often by posting videos into the void; and someone else handles creators. Nobody’s looking at the whole picture, says Norm de Greve.

During his decade-plus tenure as CMO of General Motors and CVS Health – two of the largest advertising spenders in the US – de Greve watched this play out firsthand as YouTube quickly and not so quietly outgrew its reputation as a digital line item.

Earlier this month, de Greve, who also chairs the MMA, joined the advisory board of Pixability, a YouTube-focused AI company.

“Marketing is all video now and, within video, YouTube is the biggest player,” he said. “But when it comes to brands actually having a YouTube strategy, there’s still a lot of room for improvement.”

De Greve spoke with AdExchanger.

AdExchanger: Do you have any free advice for marketers that want to do a better job with YouTube?

NORM DE GREVE: YouTube is now the top-cited source in AI search.

Most marketers are doing the paid side, but they’re not really integrating that across owned and creators, and owned usually just becomes a dumping ground for whatever videos happen to be floating around your company. No one’s managing any of this holistically.

The opportunity for Pixability and for marketers is to look at organic content to see what’s actually working so they can amplify it and get ideas for new content and which creators to allocate money to.

How did you end up on Pixability’s board, and why did you join after leaving GM over the summer?

My kids go to the same school as David George’s kids, the CEO. We live in the same town, and it’s a small industry!

To answer your second question, though, the problem of paid, owned and creators running in silos has been around for at least a decade, and there was never an easy fix. What impressed me about Pixability is the results they get when they manage across all three. Turns out, the juice is worth the squeeze.

But what’s really going to push this forward is the impact on AI search, and if you want that, you need best-in-class management across all of it.

If you decided to go back and take the CMO job at a large brand, what’s the first thing you’d change about how they’re using YouTube?

At almost every company, the effort going into YouTube isn’t commensurate with the impact that the channel can have – and that means paid, owned and creators combined. The first question I’d ask walking in the door is whether we’re allocating enough effort. And the answer will probably be “no.”

YouTube mostly gets treated as either just another paid media channel – albeit an important one – or as a social channel. But of those worlds are so separate that nobody’s thinking about how to manage the whole thing to drive results.

How should brands be thinking about measuring creator performance on YouTube?

Creator content generally outperforms brand content if you’re looking at behavioral metrics, but measuring the brand impact is much harder. That’s because you want creators to represent your brand the way you want, but they also have to stay authentic to their own audience. Nobody really has that figured out yet.

There’s a cost question, too. Sponsored posts get less traction than the content that made a creator famous, so you end up paying for the creative and for distribution. The analytics still have a ways to go. Right now, it’s very easy to say, “Look what famous person X did for us.” But that’s really not the standard we hold advertising to.

What’s the biggest mistake large brands are making with AI in marketing right now?

We’re using AI to make old processes smarter instead of redesigning the workflow with AI and agents at the core. Think about the brief. It usually starts with: “Who is the customer?” Well, in a world where I can make a thousand versions of an ad for 80 different segments, that very first question has a problem.

Companies aren’t going to see the productivity gains they want until the workflow gets redesigned around AI, not the other way around.

You’ve spent a lot of your career on the brand side – GM, CVS Health, president of Digitas – so you’ve been a buyer of media technology and you’ve been exposed, I assume, to a heck of a lot of bad ad tech pitches. What makes an ad tech pitch fall flat?

When you literally cannot understand what they’re offering. It’s all “maximize revenue optimization,” and you’re sitting there, like, “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

There was a company I met with twice – I won’t say who they are – and even after that, I still have no idea what they do.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

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MMMs Can Tell You If CTV Worked. They Can’t Always Tell You Why

By AdExchanger Guest Columnist

MMM helps marketers understand if a channel worked in the aggregate and what happens when the next dollar is added. For CTV, that discipline is badly needed. But MMMs can’t answer everything.
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In The News

David Ellison

It’s official. After a brief delay last week, US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin finally approved a consent decree to settle an antitrust lawsuit between Paramount Skydance and 12 state attorneys general, thus clearing the way for Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Per CEO David Ellison, the merger is set to close in as little as two weeks – possibly even sooner, in fact, because starting Thursday (a.k.a., today), Paramount will need to start paying its long-dreaded “ticking fee” to WBD shareholders for every day the deal isn’t finalized.
In the meantime, Paramount is already forging ahead with huge staffing decisions. In a surprise move, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz is joining Paramount as co-CEO to David Ellison. Under Kreiz, Mattel majorly expanded its IP strategy and saw its first major theatrical releases with 2023’s “Barbie” and 2026’s “Masters of the Universe.”
On Tuesday, Paramount direct-to-consumer head Cindy Holland announced to staff that she would be leaving the company, stating that CEO David Ellison was “optimizing for HBO stability.” It’s largely assumed that HBO CEO Casey Bloys will be taking over her role at the combined company.

US studios are beginning to co-produce projects with European and UK companies again, according to Elisabeth D’Arvieu, global content officer at French studio Mediawan and CEO of Mediawan Pictures.

As she told audiences at IberSeries in Madrid on Wednesday, “The co-production market in the US was almost closed for the past two or three years,” but is beginning to reopen a little as buyers recognize the advantage of lower costs and tax incentives.
Will that change, however, if the US federal film and tax credit makes its way through congress and successfully becomes law? Not necessarily, if Europe maintains the same level of quality on its international shows, D’Arvieu noted.

Speaking of the UK, a few British studios have already submitted to become the next producer of “Doctor Who,” including at least one BBC Studios indie label.

This seems to fall in line with the strategy outlined by BBC Studios Scripted Managing Director Jamie Hall, who told Deadline he wants to strike smaller, more consistent deals and foster creative hubs within the BBC’s existing production studios, rather than dropping tens of millions of dollars (well, pounds) on studio acquisitions.
“Doctor Who” was originally an in-house series before the studio Bad Wolf – as helmed by on-again, off-again showrunner Russell T Davies – began co-producing it in 2023. The series also partnered with Disney+ as another co-producer for several years, in a deal that cost an estimated $8.5 million per episode.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

Just 20 US markets account for one in four political ad dollars heading into election season, according to recent research from Kinetiq Political Insights (KPI).

New & Returning Series

For sneak peeks, check out Cynopsis Trailer Park.

Peacock announced the premiere date for “Ted: The Animated Series,” a new installment in Seth MacFarlane’s franchise that features Mark Wahlberg (“Entourage”), Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout”) and Jessica Barth (“Along Came the Devil”) reprising their original movie roles. Episode 1 premieres Dec. 7.

“CNN All Access” is launching a new eight-episode streaming series about overlooked and misunderstood aspects of women’s health, hosted by “The Situation Room” co-anchor Pamela Brown. “Body Language by CNN” will premiere its first four episodes Oct. 8, with the remaining four coming in November.

“The Lowdown” Season 2, starring Ethan Hawke (“The Good Lord Bird”), Keith David (“Community”), Betty Gilpin (“Death by Lightning”) and Tommy Lee Jones (“The Sunset Limited”), premieres Oct. 14 on FX.

“Barbershop,” an upcoming comedy series based on the film franchise of the same name, will premiere all eight episodes on Prime Video Feb. 10. This is the second iteration of a “Barbershop” TV series; the first, starring Omar Gooding (“Saturdays”), ran for one season in 2005.

Today’s Premieres

BBC America: “The Graham Norton Show” Season 34 at 11 p.m.
Crunchyroll: “FX Fighter Kurumi-Chan”
CW: “Scrabble” Season 3 at 8 p.m.; “Trivial Pursuit” Season 3 at 8:30 p.m.
Freeform: “Coven Academy” at 8 p.m.
HBO: “War” at 9 p.m.
Sundance: “Archive X: Unexplained Phenomena” at 10 p.m.
Netflix: “Chumbak”; “East of Eden”; “The Ramparts of Ice” Season 2

IN OTHER NEWS

Jenna Ortega in Netflix’s “Wednesday” Season 3

Netflix announced that production has wrapped for “Wednesday” Season 3. The series will return next year, although the season premiere date is still to be determined.

“Vanderpump Rules” star Ariana Madix is in talks to executive produce and star in an original scripted drama at Peacock. The series, called “Future Housewives,” is a riff on the popular Bravo “Real Housewives” franchise, of which “Vanderpump Rules” is a spinoff.

Hearst Networks bought the UK rights to “Orange County Choppers Originals,” the revival of the “American Chopper” unscripted series. The new show first aired in the US via Discovery in February and has already secured a second season.

HBO Max greenlit a Spanish drama series from “Querer” screenwriters Fran Araújo and Eduard Sola, executive produced by “La Bola Negra” creators Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. The series is based on real-life unsolved crimes that took place in Tor, a small village in the Pyrenees mountains.

CBS is ordering three unscripted series: “Stacks of Cash,” a quiz-based game show hosted by Emmy Award-nominated actor Mike O’Malley (“Glee,” “Yes, Dear”); “24 Hour Millionaire,” a competition series from the executive producers of “Big Brother”; and an updated edition of the Emmy Award-winning series “Undercover Boss,” hosted by Drew Carey (“The Price Is Right,” “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”).

More drag races, anyone? (No, not that kind of drag race.) The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) inked a multiyear deal with sports-focused media company FloSports. The agreement makes FloRacing – FloSports’ subscription-based service dedicated to motorsports – the exclusive streaming hub of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, starting with the 2027 season.

It’s almost time for midterms. Ahead of election season, political ad intelligence platform Kinetiq Political Insights (KPI) is teaming up with ad operations company XR (Extreme Reach) to improve campaign effectiveness. The collaboration will help US political advertisers pair KPI’s ad spend data with XR’s ad delivery data to fine-tune campaigns while they’re still active.

TODAY’S TRIVIA QUESTION

Two cast members of Netflix’s “The Diplomat” are no stranger to White House sets, given that they both rose to prominence playing staffers in “The West Wing.” Name both of them.

YESTERDAY’S TRIVIA ANSWER

Who plays the snarky shrimp-loving protagonist Eleanor Shellstrop in the hit NBC comedy show “The Good Place”? Kristen Bell.

Congrats to: David Rubinsohn-American Public Television/Boston, MA; Andrew Goldman-Phanes Funding Group/NYC; Gerry Bixenspan-TV Marketing Inc./NYC; Stephen Warren-Northeastern University/Boston, MA; Ashley Cajthaml-Spectrum Reach/Overland Park, KS; Lorrie Shilling/El Segundo, CA; Sandra Mueller-KTLA/LA; Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/LA; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA

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Locality’s Tom Wolfe On Why Top-Down National TV Strategies Fail In Local Markets

Podcasts
By: Michael Kraus
September 30, 2026

Supply path optimization (SPO) has become industry shorthand for aggressive fee-cutting and stripping out intermediaries. But according to Tom Wolfe, Senior Vice President of Programmatic Strategy and Partnerships at Locality, the ad tech industry is optimizing for the wrong thing. “A shorter path isn’t inherently a better path,” Wolfe says on this episode of AdExchanger’s […]

Cynopsis 9/30/2026: Disney Braces For TV Layoffs

Cynopsis
By: Alyssa Boyle
September 30, 2026

Disney conducted another round of layoffs, primarily across tech and HR. Insider sources say the TV division is bracing for a major impending restructuring under new Disney Entertainment Television head Debra O’Connell amid broader workflow automation and cost-tightening pressures.

Streamlined 9/29/2026: MMMs Can Tell You If CTV Worked. They Can’t Always Tell You Why

Cynopsis
By: Alyssa Boyle
September 29, 2026

Marketing mix models deserve the attention they are getting. Used well, they can pull brands out of a measurement culture that still gives too much credit to the click, especially in channels where clicking was never the point. For CTV, that discipline is badly needed.

Cynopsis 09/28/2026: Block The Merger Officially Opposes The Paramount Settlement

Cynopsis
By: Victoria McNally
September 28, 2026

Not surprisingly, the Block The Merger coalition – more specifically, Free Press, the Committee for the First Amendment, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Future Film Coalition and the International Documentary Association – officially filed an amicus brief to oppose the settlement Paramount Skydance made with 12 state attorneys general.

Cynopsis 9/25/2026: Paramount’s Merger Plans Face Further Delays

Cynopsis
By: Alyssa Boyle
September 25, 2026

The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is experiencing even further delays thanks to US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, who did not grant court approval to the settlement and proposed consent decree that Paramount worked out with 12 state attorneys general earlier this week.

Streamlined 10/01/2026: What Brands Are Getting Wrong About YouTube, Says GM’s Former CMO

Forward 2026: A Forum for the Future of TV Advertising—Oct. 29, NYC

What Brands Are Getting Wrong About YouTube, According To The Former CMO Of General Motors

By Allison Schiff

Philo Ads is an innovative and effective way to reach CTV audiences.

MMMs Can Tell You If CTV Worked. They Can’t Always Tell You Why

By AdExchanger Guest Columnist

Convergence changes planning. Nexxen U’s data course keeps pace.

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Locality’s Tom Wolfe On Why Top-Down National TV Strategies Fail In Local Markets

Cynopsis 9/30/2026: Disney Braces For TV Layoffs

Streamlined 9/29/2026: MMMs Can Tell You If CTV Worked. They Can’t Always Tell You Why

Cynopsis 09/28/2026: Block The Merger Officially Opposes The Paramount Settlement

Cynopsis 9/25/2026: Paramount’s Merger Plans Face Further Delays

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Forward 2026: A Forum for the Future of TV Advertising—Oct. 29, NYC

What Brands Are Getting Wrong About YouTube, According To The Former CMO Of General Motors

By Allison Schiff

Philo Ads is an innovative and effective way to reach CTV audiences.

MMMs Can Tell You If CTV Worked. They Can’t Always Tell You Why

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Convergence changes planning. Nexxen U’s data course keeps pace.