POTUS Day: Ads, Frauds and Local Tensions

Data & Measurement
Written By Jason Damata

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” - President Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s POTUS day in America. If you are the type that actually does something related to the national work holiday, we suggest checking out POTUS portraits in the C-SPAN archives.

But first, we have some hot-buttons to press in TV land:

Ads Still Matter: This week’s originals include Alan Wolk’s hot take on the sorry state of SBLX ad creatives countered by a hot take on iSpot’s new AI platform, SAGE. John Cassillo concurred by showing data on The Measure showing the positive spirit of SBLX ads are in decline and asked SAGE why.

For all the ROAS-holes lying to the market about ad outcomes, let’s remember what people see, feel and think has everything to do with why, when and how they act. Or as Brandon Katz points out this week, Interest Creates Potential, Conversions Create Hits. You can’t steal or skip your way to success, you have to earn it through the hearts and minds of actual people before they buy. Silly fraudsters promoting flimsy/easy buttons, Trix are for kids.

Speaking of Fraud: Our friend Justin Lebbon looks at AI causing market panic and wonders if we’re over investing in CTV, while Jon Lafayette unpacks Truthset research on the $37B waste in CTV and how to fix it. Guest International columnist Sofie Sue Rutgeerts shows us how measurement standards can create—gasp— trust?!

Local Tensions Proximity columnist Tim Hanlon took a cold hard look at local and ATSC 3.0, and in typical Tim fashion, called some B.S. That column sparked a fresh rebuttal from Sinclair. While we don’t always agree, we’re happy to follow in the footsteps of TV’s great treasure C-SPAN, and let you decide.

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“We think of Barack Obama as the first president elected with a nonwhite majority, but Ulysses S. Grant was actually the first president elected with a nonwhite majority. He only won the popular vote in 1868 because four hundred thousand African Americans voted for him. By 1890, only a few thousand were still able to vote in the South. This is a story of Ulysses S. Grant that needs to be told, that has not really been told, of a person who stood up against the voter suppression of his day. That was really the goal of the Ku Klux Klan, to suppress the vote.… He wanted to stop [voter suppression] and give these African Americans—freed people—their right to vote.” Brian Lamb, founder, C-SPAN

Amazon Expands Sports Ad Playbook Heading Into Upfront [Adweek]

  • TL;DR: Amazon is expanding its sports ad offerings across Prime Video and NFL Thursday Night Football with new inventory formats, data-integrated measurement, and enhanced sponsorship opportunities.

Roku Breezes Past Wall Street’s Q4 Earnings Outlook, Signals Plan For Premium Subscription Bundles [Deadline]

  • TL;DR: Roku reported better-than-expected Q4 2025 results, posting roughly $1.4 billion in revenue and a swing to profitable net income, with platform revenue (ads + distribution) up ~18% YoY.

Amazon Ads unveils ‘Creative Agent’ chatbot to create ads [Campaign]

  • TL;DR: Amazon Ads unveiled an AI-powered assistant that guides advertisers through creative development by suggesting concepts, headlines, copy, and visual ideas tailored to campaign goals and audience signals.

The Trade Desk stock hits 52-week low at $26.01 [Investing.com]

  • TL;DR: TTD’s share price has plunged sharply — recently hitting a 52-week low around ~$26, down roughly 70-80% from prior highs — driven by investor concerns about slowing growth, competitive pressure from walled gardens like Amazon and Google, and recent leadership turnover (including a short-lived CFO tenure).

Future of TV Briefing: CTV identity matches are usually wrong [Digiday]

  • TL;DR: A Truthset study found that IP-to-email and IP-to-address matches are wrong more than 80% of the time, meaning much of today’s CTV targeting and attribution is built on faulty data.

ICYMI

Hanlon’s Local Links:

Jason Damata

Jason is the founder and CEO of Fabric Media, a media incubator and talent consortium. The company serves leading-edge TV disruptors- from data and analytics platforms to TV networks to emotional measurement companies. Damata has traveled the country for C-SPAN, where he worked with MSOs, produced educational political programming. He has served as CMO of Bebo when it was the world's 3rd largest social network, led marketing for Trendrr until it was acquired by Twitter and helped build the world's largest LIVE broadcast offering at explore.org where he built up a global syndication network. He is an analyst for companies on the edge of TV innovation such as iSpot, Inscape, Canvs, TNT and more.

http://linkedin.com/in/jasondamata
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