Hot List: TV’s Thought Leaders On Creators, Politics, The Future Of CTV Advertising

Data & MeasurementAdvertising
Written by Jason Damata

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life." — The late Patrick Stewart as Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Shake off the sugar hangover from raiding that Halloween stash and put away that hilarious costume …

It’s Election Week in America! We Have Questions.

Given all the swirl about what will happen and fogginess about what is actually going on, I looked at some of the cable news networks’ prime time audience and ad trends from iSpot since Sept 1. CNN is a now distant third. Is that a symptom of a bigger problem?

We have more questions: like what happens to local media now that the $11.6B infusion is set to cool for at least another year? And by the next cycle, won’t streaming eat most of that up? How much $ will flow to dark social? And perhaps more importantly, where does all that money come from anyway? (Surely it’s not all from concerned citizens who are feeling economic pressures or inspired by candidate platforms).

I digress.

This week’s Hot List features a big slate of originals that go beyond being helpful for work purposes, they speak to the changing cultural and technological landscape of which media is a part.

TLC on CTV

And if you only have time for one thing, be sure to check out commentary from 10 TV and ad executives in the latest Hot Takes: The State Of CTV Advertising. If you find yourself thinking you/your company should have more of a voice in the TV marketplace, you’re in luck! We’re now opening up participation for our 2027 TLC memberships today Nov 1. Now accepting applications!

Happy November friends. Thanks as always for being here.

Combined Paramount/WBD Set to Top US TV Ad Time [VideoWeek]

  • TL;DR: In August, NBCUniversal and its spinoff Versant combined accounted for the greatest share of TV ad exposure time, at 17.5 percent.

Walmart Opens Shopper Audiences to Advertisers on Its CTV Platform, Vibe [Adweek]

  • TL;DR: Vibe, the self-service platform that lets brands buy ads on CTV, will let advertisers target over 3,300 of Walmart’s audience segments, which are built on the retailer’s first-party data on web and in-store shopping, beginning this week.

Netflix Grapples With Digital-Ad Squeeze Amid Widening Glut of Streaming Commercials [Variety]

  • TL;DR: A flood of new streaming ad inventory is squeezing Netflix’s ad business, which co-CEO Greg Peters acknowledges is running behind its aggressive 2026 targets.

Tubi reveals TikTok creator cohort with 10 original long-form series [StreamTV Insider]

  • TL;DR: Tubi named the 12 creators in its Creatorverse Incubator with TikTok, who will bring 10 series exclusive to Tubi across animation, horror, reality, and young adult.

Skydance Ads Boss Reveals New Leadership Team [Adweek]

  • TL;DR: Chief revenue officer Jay Askinasi has named his ad leadership team for the combined Paramount-WBD company, led by Danielle Carney as head of U.S. sales.

Apple Is Revving Up Its Ads Business With Formula 1 [The Hollywood Reporter]

  • TL;DR: Apple is using Formula 1, which it now carries exclusively in the U.S., as a vehicle to build out its advertising business, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

YouTube Ad Revenue Jumps 9% in Third Quarter [The Wrap]

  • TL;DR: YouTube ad revenue rose 9% to $11.2B in Q3, and living-room viewing accounted for more than a third of it.

CTV advertising has a genre-label problem [Digiday]

  • TL;DR: A Wurl analysis found only 11% of CTV ad requests carried a usable show name, and about 35% of the genre labels didn’t match the program they were attached to.

Amazon Has TV’s First Fully AI-Made Series. There’s No Going Back [The Ankler]

  • TL;DR: Prime Video is streaming Castle Walls, a two-episode melodrama from Turkey’s Ay Yapım built largely with AI visuals, and has released it globally alongside its conventional series.

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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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CNN is a Now Distant Third. Is that a Symptom of a Bigger Problem?